Re: “Media to blame for apolitical students,” published Nov. 14.

As a journalism major, I was incredibly disappointed in the Sundial’s decision to print the editorial by Justin Satzman.

My criticisms are not a response to the article’s content. The journalistic community and academia are the two greatest bastions of liberalism in this country, so it was no surprise that the article’s author used many of the typical left-wing talking points in his piece. Although I disagree with just about everything he said, I would never question his right to say it.

However, I do question the professionalism of the Sundial’s editors, for allowing such a poorly written piece to appear in our paper.

Every paper in this country, abides by certain journalistic standards. These standards should also apply to college papers such as the Sundial. Its contributors must learn the right way to organize their thoughts and present them in written form. Monday’s opinion piece showed us that some of the Sundial’s contributors are not even remotely prepared to meet these universal standards.

The author uses poorly written sentences such as:

“There are a variety of reasons for this and it has nothing to do with college students today do not care.”

One paragraph that stands out as being particularly atrocious reads:

“Some would argue that the reason people are not protesting like they did during Vietnam is because of the number amount killed. Vietnam had over 50,000 killed not to mention the countless of innocent victims that were killed”

An odd and unnecessary declaration:

“I am here to say, however… that Iraq had nothing to do with the terror attacks.”

Then, he bungles another point by failing to present the reader with anything that even remotely resembles a real sentence:

“They similarly disproved the argument for nuclear weapons, which they said Saddam Hussein was trying to obtain them.”

The points that the author is trying to convey are obvious, but it is unlikely that the author will bring many of those students who are still on the fence in regards to the Iraq war over to his side, if they question his intellect due to his lack of writing skills.

While the author clearly needs to work on his writing and organizational skills, most of the criticism should be aimed at the editors of the Sundial for allowing this article to go to print. I fear to think what an outside observer, such as a parent of a prospective student, would think of our school after reading such a shoddy piece of journalism.

If individuals not associated with Northridge were to read this article, which was written by a journalism major, questions may be raised regarding the department’s ability to properly prepare its students for the real world.

Both The Sundial and CSUN have a reputation to uphold, and that reputation is not helped when our student newspaper prints an article which does not live up to the journalistic standards, to which we should expect the Sundial to adhere.

While my criticisms may be embarrassing to The Sundial as well as the author of the opinion piece, the fact that the piece was published is embarrassing to the school, its professors and especially to journalism majors such as myself. Hopefully, my letter will assure that this kind of thing doesn’t happen again.

Daniel Joseph

Freshman

Journalism Major

Freshman