Collegiate Times

Given the model presented in Tuesday's column, it is possible to make predictions about what the news in the Collegiate Times will look like.

In general the stories that are published will be in favor of the ideas that are promoted by administrators at Virginia Tech, as framed by the Office of University Relations.

Some of the most important stories will never be told. Both of these results stem primarily from an asymmetry of information and access.

One way these results occur is through the selection of sources. A way to check this is to simply label and categorize the sources that are mentioned in each article about new university initiatives. Normally, in most stories published on the front page, the number of administrators or faculty who have a stake in promoting the new initiative will outnumber the critical, dissenting voices. The language, terminology and issues will also be set by representatives for the university, as these individuals have far more experience and first hand knowledge of how to stick to their talking points when communicating with reporters to influence the direction of a news story.

There will also be a long list of stories that will never be published simply due to the way information is organized at this university. One of the strangest peculiarities of the opinion pages will always be the sheer amount of columns and letters to the editor written about the occupation in Iraq. Never have I read a column regarding the role the university plays in regard to global issues; such as through grants from the Department of Defense, or our school's relationship with questionable corporations and recruiters.

The main issue is not whether these relationships are good or bad, but exploring why there is so little news or analysis regarding these issues.

There are also the stories that simply fall through the cracks. Examples include when the university began copying hard drives from professors in the English department this summer, to the "Security Infrastructure Working Group Report" released this August by Virginia Tech, which advocates establishing video surveillance over most of the campus.

As for students, one of the biggest problems in political activism is the high turnover rate. Students leave after four years of gaining first hand knowledge and experience of how the university functions. Once these students leave, the next class of freshman must start anew, having to relearn the same lessons on their own. Mechanisms must be put in place to help battle this problem of institutional memory.

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