Trinity Review Misrepresents Campus Discourse

Alex Dahlem ’20
Opinion Editor
This past Friday Nick Engstrom ’22 posted in the “Alumni for a Better Trinity College” Facebook group about a new college publication circulating the Trinity community. The online news magazine, entitled the Trinity Review, was created in direct opposition to the Tripod and claims, according to the post, to be “a more diverse perspective on the campus.”
While I respect and support the right for more student journalism on Trinity’s campus, I am discouraged to see that this publication, is providing the upstanding alumni of this college with false information about diversity of discourse within the Tripod and on campus. As the Opinion Editor of the Tripod, these comments are disturbing, disrespectful, and directly undermine the hard journalistic work of our entire editorial staff.
In no way is the Tripod biased towards any political viewpoints, as this post and many previous posts in the group would suggest. The Opinion section consistently publishes liberal and conservative articles, oftentimes achieving equal representation from both political poles.
In fact, two of the prominently featured articles within the second issue of the Trinity Review were published in the Tripod just weeks earlier. How can this be an alternative to the Tripod when its content is the Tripod?
The saddest part is that many alumni within the aforementioned Facebook group believe that this new publication will be a fair and balanced alternative to the Tripod. In a comment on Engstrom’s post, one member said “If Trinity can encourage and support attempts at civil and probative discourse like this, it will rank with the best.” This member is oblivious to the fact that such discourse already exists on the campus, in fact it is thriving.
Just a few weeks ago I took the time to meet with a prospective writer who told me he wanted to publish a conservative piece in the Tripod Opinion section. I was appalled when he told me that he never sees conservative-leaning pieces within our paper, because this is simply untrue. I am not against the creation of new publications on our campus. In fact, I encourage it. However, it is unfair to the hard work of our publiction when students and other members of the com- munity blatantly lie about and ignore the diversity of opinion within the Tripod and on our campus.