Spectrum Wars

6/5/06 The Spectrum
6/6/06 A Broader Spectrum
6/7/06 The Narrow Spectrum

In the last week, a number of official and unofficial school publications have managed to cover what was once thought impossible—the entire spectrum on news available at AB. Granted, there isn’t much news at AB, but impressively, these three publications managed to publish on consecutive days.

I understand there are both petty and humane reasons for the existence of A Broader Spectrum, some of which may have to do indirectly with me. I greatly admire and respect the tenacity of the founders who got their issue together, despite the broad opposition that they faced from the administration. Yet, I cannot respect BS (too easy, too easy) as a publication. They call themselves an underground paper, all the while subverting the very point of an underground paper

The Broader Spectrum wants to be an eye-opener (as represented in the front page graphic), “bringing personality back to the news.” What it actually does, however, is lob political softballs on issues already overplayed in the media. It functions as a liberal speaker preaching in a liberal echo chamber to a very liberal choir. These type of cotton-candy “news” does nothing to shake AB out of its current complacency, which was seen the demise of VOICE, MESA, Common Ground, and pretty much every other socially aware group.

If it wants to succeed, the Broader Spectrum needs to be more than an “underground” hybrid of Spectrum/Lit Mag/Idiosyncrasy/CNN World News printed on hand-stapled, black-and-white, low-quality paper.

On the subject of The Narrow Spectrum, there are no words. All bow down.