In the Feb. 27 [2004] issue of the Argus, on page 13, there was an advertisement for Wespeaks. It consisted of a somewhat full glass of water and the slogan “The glass is a third empty. Write a Wespeak.” Now, in and of itself, this is fine. I think that Wespeaks are a vital part of what makes the Argus such a vibrant and relevant source of news.
However, upon closer examination, a glaring flaw in the ad becomes apparent. If you have the ad at hand, take a good look at that glass of water. Allowing for the greater volume of the top of the glass relative to the bottom, the glass is a quarter empty at best. I am calling for an examination into the methodology behind the ratios involved. If faulty methods are to blame for this problem, then I think more oversight is necessary to make sure that this sort of error does not occur again. However, it seems likely that the true problem is a willingness by a writer to falsify facts for greater impact. If this is the case, stating that that glass of water is a third empty is no more acceptable than stating that gender is an unshakable tenet of natural law.
In a time when Jayson Blair and others have drawn our attention to how vulnerable we are to lies in the media as a whole, and newspapers specifically, I call for the Argus to make a stand for unimpeachable accuracy, so that it may remain the cornerstone of campus information and discussion that it has always been.
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