I find it disturbing that The Hatchet’s most prolific columnist, Russ Rizzo, is also the newspaper’s editor in chief.
In his weekly column (“Inside Our Pages”), Rizzo often writes of a previous Hatchet story, and gives an account of why it was published, in the process providing opinions about the issues surrounding the article. If Rizzo is truly serious about improving the quality of The Hatchet, as he has written, he should take a leaf from daily newspapers like the New York Times or Washington Post, in which an editor in chief would not be caught dead writing a weekly column.
The standards of the newspaper should be justification enough for almost any story, and readers should not have to be hit over the head every week with explanations of how The Hatchet is managed when the space Rizzo’s column fills could be used for something more important.
There are cases that deserve Rizzo’s treatment, such as the reporting of the murder of Jonathan Rizzo. But for the most part, Rizzo should reserve his opinions for the space to the left of his column – the staff editorials.
-Jonathan S. Reiling
sophomore