The D Breaks a Story! Not.

In today’s Daily Dartmouth, there’s an article that acts like a real-live journalism piece: that is, it pretends to be news with an angle. Truly, though, the article possesses neither news nor a worthy angle—the fact that the Phrygians support the AoA parity slate is not news, and the only angle driving the piece is outing the members of the Phrygian society.

The D takes issue with the fact that the Phrygians are taking over Dartmouth’s media outlets by—wait for it…writing letters to the editor of the D. The infamous Bonnie Lam comic, of course, is a more serious attempt, but seems less like the Phrygians taking over the D and more like bad editing on the D’s part. But read the article yourself and comment below!

UPDATE below the jump: D Editor-in-chief Katy O’Donnell allegedly ghost wrote the Phrygian article.

UPDATE [3:57 pm]: Katy O’Donnell allegedly ghost wrote today’s piece on the Phrygian society, the piece for which Nick Swanson has the by-line. A friend of The Dartmouth Review’s, who wishes to remain anonymous, told TDR that O’Donnell ghost wrote the piece; when I asked the source 1) What motivated O’Donnell to do this and 2) how s/he knew that O’Donnell ghost wrote the article, the source responded:

Part of it is sycophancy; they [the D writers and editors] think they get ahead by going to bat for the administration and the creme of the alums who are behind the efforts to curtail the petition process. She [O’Donnell] also is very angry with Alex Felix for the cartoon ordeal, which I hear took a lot out of her…

Two people at the D told me she wrote it, and in her emails she repeatedly referred to it as her own work. However, D “policy” is that the ed [editor] cannot write articles. So she faked a byline. Which is a an egregious violation of ethics.

Again, this is an allegation, and I have already contacted Katy to see if the allegation has any merit. I’ll let readers know as soon as she responds.

UPDATE #2 [9:19 am, May 26]: When I got in touch with Katy O’Donnell this past weekend, she pointed out that it is not against the D’s editorial policy for the editor-in-chief to pen editorials. However, she did not respond to the allegation that she ghost wrote the piece, saying instead “surely people realize that an editor’s job is to help reporters.” Having heard the allegation of ghost-writing repeated by two members of the D, I asked her about it once more, but she did not respond to the allegation, but merely asked me the names of the D members who corroborated the claim.


Be the first to comment on "The D Breaks a Story! Not."

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published.


*