We would like to apologize for the Tweet of the Week feature in the opinion section of this weeks paper. The tweet that was selected was from a satirical twitter account that often makes political commentary with satirical humor. However, when this tweet was put into print, nowhere did it state that the source or content was meant to be satirical. We completely understand why this tweet can be read as something that is offensive and racist. The severity of the Ebola virus in Africa and the thousands of lives it has taken is no laughing matter. Neither is the perpetuation of the idea that people of color--our President included--are responsible for spreading such a terrible virus. We fully understand the underlying racism and xenophobia this tweet highlights. Our editors picked this tweet because they thought it was making commentary on the fact that people continue to share these ignorant ideas in mainstream media. However, what ended up happening is that this was read as something that perpetuated those same ideas this satire was trying to make commentary on. When the opinion section decides to include satirical political commentary, it is trying to hone in on the type of commentary used by comedians such as Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, however, even they have made jokes in poor taste and we believe this to be a mistake and moment of poor taste on our behalf. We recognize that aside from the very obvious offensive content, it was nowhere explicitly stated that this tweet was intended to be that kind of satire. In the future, we will not only be conscious about the type of content we choose, but also the clarity in which we convey this to our readers. We apologize for printing something that is beneath our values as a part of the UCI community and as a publication committed to serving the student body. It is our job to listen to what students have to say and take their concerns very seriously, especially with topics that are this sensitive. We are here because of the students and we are here to serve students, and we will continue to work to that testament. If you have any concerns and would like to speak to someone personally, please contact our Editor-in-Chief, Sarah Menendez at [email protected].
Posted on: Wed, 08 Oct 2014 05:47:27 +0000
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