Title: Outsiders’ Perspectives on The Dartmouth Review

Informant Information: These informants are all members of the current Dartmouth student body. Some of these individuals knew some members of the Review personally, while others do not know anyone from The Dartmouth Review. The informants are: Matthew Steiner ’16, Bill Kerin ’16, Sai Mupparaju ’18, Peter Xiong ’17, Evelyn Fernandez ’16, Will Telsma ’19, Vivian Zhai ’19. They are a diverse group of students who were interviewed throughout May in different locations in Hanover, NH.

Type of Lore: Verbal

Language: English

Country of Origin: United States of America

Social / Cultural Context: Many on the Dartmouth campus have complex feelings about the Review, and some of them are documented here. We also see that the Dartmouth student body has developed its own folklore about the Review, with rumors, urban legends, and jokes. These informants were all asked, “What is your opinion of the Dartmouth Review?” and their responses are transcribed below.

Transcript:

Matthew Steiner ’16:
So, the Dartmouth Review is traditionally the conservative newspaper on campus, it’s run independently of campus, it was established, I think, around the 1980’s, and I actually have the privilege of attending a lot of Review meetings, and so I know a number of people in it, and definitely I would say a large number of those people do happen to be conservative, for whatever reason there is the public perception that a lot of people in the Review are out of touch politically on a number of issues, not only with the folks on campus but also with the broader society. And I think, I think it really depends on the person you talk to at the Review. I think that what I’ve discovered the most, out of the amount of time I’ve spent there, there’s more diversity, I wouldn’t say traditional diversity necessarily in terms of socioeconomics or in terms of race, but there’s more diversity in opinions and more diversity in moral standing and moral character than the stereotypes seem to portend. Not everyone is like a bad person a the Review, that is such a gross overgeneralization; there are bad people at any organization, there are good people at any organization, and in my view there are plenty of good people at the Review as well, even if I happen to disagree with them politically. I’m usually the most left-wing person in the room when I’m there, even though I respect some of their opinions, and yeah in my view, I think it is more of a diverse organization than people give them credit for, and I think they take journalism very seriously and what they do very seriously, and in the long-term I hope that they continue to play to their strengths.

Bill Kerin ’16:
So, much like Matt [Steiner] said, I think there is this broader kind of campus sentiment or understanding of the Review as perhaps being out of touch with some issues, again as Matt articulated, in general society and on campus I think it is also though generally acknowledged among the same campus population that the Review is better written than competing student publications, so I don’t know if it’s wholly negative in that regard. And, though the Review does, it is often the butt of many jokes, at least on social media platforms like Yik Yak and certainly jokes that I’ve heard made by peers, when copies of the Review are dropped off, people will make jokes about it. But I think, in general, my perception of the Review is, I have a bit of a, uh, I guess a complicated relationship, I do know and like members of the organization and I know them quite well, however sometimes I find myself on the opposite end of the political spectrum and can view some actions taken by members or associated organizations as needlessly inflammatory and there are also certain prominent anecdotes from the Review’s past that capture the imagination in a negative way, and this can you know elicit a particular response from me, especially as it pertains to social values, in particular. And so, you know, that can sometimes be a struggle to reconcile with the people that I know very well and like very much who write for the publication, but I attribute that, I suppose like Matt said, to the diversity of the organization, which, although I have not interacted with all members of the Review, I do get the sense that it is a far more diverse organization than people do give it credit for.

Sai Mupparaju ’18:
Honestly, I have no opinion, I’ve never really been interested in reading it. It’s the same with, like, the D and in general, I’m just not interested in reading about the news at Dartmouth. But I have heard very negative views of the Review, just like, people haven’t been very fond of it, they find some of its writing to be too conservative, but yeah that’s honestly all I know.

Peter Xiong ’17:
I haven’t really heard anything about the Review except for basic facts, like they have a house, a building off campus, and sometimes they send like their papers to like doors and I pick it up and read it, and not bad.

Evelyn Fernandez ’16:
Ok, so I know that The Dartmouth Review has been around for a long time, and it has a good alumni group that funds them so that they have quite a bit of money, and they have an office in town, it’s really nice, I’ve been there once. I feel, like when I imagine the Dartmouth Review, for some reason I imagine a bunch of white guys working there, or the majority male. I don’t know why that is, it might just be because the friends I have at the Review all just happen to be male and most likely white. I think that The Dartmouth Review, well a lot of people dislike it. I have a lot of friends who have very negative things to say about the Review, and think of them as being very biased and old, white, conservative males who hail the patriarchy and probably have the Dartmouth Indian somewhere. As far as my perspective, I think they are a healthy presence on campus, because I think campus has a tendency to either coddle students or really promote a single point of view, and I think that the Review is a good response to that, and it is bold and I like that. With that said though that doesn’t mean I like all of the articles in the Review. I just like that there’s another perspective out there, that kind of serves to counter some of the things on campus. And I think, sometimes I feel like the Dartmouth is kinda like CNN in that they try to be more middle of the road, and I guess the Review would be more like Fox News, but this is a horrible analogy because those comparisons are not necessarily true, but I think The Dartmouth tries to be supposedly unbiased, whereas I think the Review tries to be more honest about things. So for example, when the protest happened, when was it, in the Fall, the one in the library, the Dartmouth gave a very mediocre report on it, whereas I felt like the Review, although I really didn’t agree with how the Review presented some of the stuff, it at least tried to provide a more accurate presentation of things, even if some of those things were harder to hear. So I guess in summary, I like that the Review is a little antagonistic towards other views on campus. That does not necessarily mean that I agree with everything in it, and I think that sometimes it is a little exaggerated in its views on campus, but I think that’s true of anything, everything has a bias.

Will Telsma ’19:
Um, I get it under my door like every month or so. It’s definitely, to me at least, seems like a pretty good alternative to the D, which doesn’t seem to have an opinion on things, just kinda states facts. I like the fact that it is a conservative voice on campus, where it doesn’t always seem like there is a very obvious one, and if you mention conservative news there’s a lot of people just waiting to shoot you down, so I just feel like it’s a good place for conservative people to go hang out and share their views. I know, um, that a guy who worked on the Review [Dinesh D’Souza ’83] made a movie about President Obama that I saw about basically how Obama was going to run the country into the ground. That was one of the things that kinda attracted me to the Review because I share some similar views about said President, um yeah that’s one of the things I’ve heard.

Vivian Zhai ’19:
Um, I know they’re very conservative, and I think generally campus has a pretty
negative perception of the Dartmouth Review. A lot of people say they’re like behind certain like demonstrations in Collis or like, I don’t know, protesting, like, protesters, that kind of stuff.

Collector’s Comments: The opinions of the Dartmouth student body regarding The Dartmouth Review are quite varied and widely spread, from very positive to very negative. Many do not know very much about The Dartmouth Review, yet they still have a very strongly negative opinion of it; however, among those who do have some sort of connection to and knowledge of the Review, the opinions are generally much more positive.