Why should you "brace yourself" for a response from The Crimson when you go begging for one through your headline? One doesn't bait the hook just for the sake of baiting it.
 

What's the big deal about the headline? The Crimson did bash the faculty.
 

Richard, you're missing the point. No one is going to take issue with your criticism of the Crimson editorial (except, perhaps, on substantive grounds).

The objections to your previous post centered around your suggestion that it was inappropriate and unnewsworthy for the Crimson to talk about faculty attendance in a news story, even though the lack of attendance was an issue brought up by professors at the meeting itself! And some people took exception to the fact that you made the unsubstantiated and, I think, unlikely suggestion that the reason the news reporters mentioned that detail was their and the editorial board's joint obsession with attendance, rather than the fact that attendance was (1) substantially and noticeably lower and (2) mentioned at the meeting itself, as I noted above.

It's perfectly fine to suggest that a focus on attendance is inappropriate, for any number of reasons, but at least in the previous post, and in the snarky beginning to this one, you substitute the irrelevant and unhelpful suggestion that the editorial and news pages are in "synergy" for real argumentation. It's not on face bad for the editorial page and the news story to talk about the same aspect of a story, and it doesn't mean that somehow they are in cahoots to shift the story away from something more important.
 

ditto to what "not on the crimson" so beautifully said.
 

Also, how does The Crimson show an affinity for centralized power? Are you referring to news coverage, or editorials?
 

I believe Richard is implying that The Crimson has a particular affinity for Larry Summers (or "centralized power"), and to such an extent that it clouds their overall objectivity and editorial judgement.
 

Yes, I got that. I was just hoping against hope that RB would actually offer up some sort of substantive analysis or example.
 

The Crimson loves Summers because he cast himself as the monarch who would throw gold to the starving beggars, and the Crimson loves to see students as abused by Harvard. See, for example, http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=508586: "Summers Grants Millions To Fund Student Space Construction." Of course these weren't grants--they were not philanthropy. The so-called grants were just student tuitions being put to use for student affairs. There were many examples of this over the Summers years. There is no tradition at Harvard of Harvard employees taking personal credit for money spent on students' behalf; it has always seemed more appropriate to view such spending decisions as collective or simply "Harvard's." The Crimson likes centralization because it likes the imperial president, as long as the emperor is spending for students. Anonymous bureaucrats and the like are so much less efficient and less glamorous.
 

so true, and so depressing, anonymous at 9:42pm
 

Who was it who said that benevolent dictatorship is the best form of government?
 

9:42 gets it exactly in my view, and the essential problem was that Pres. Summers was perceived as behaving like a Washington politician, whose rhetoric was all about his own forward-looking policies that were going to wrench an archaic Harvard into the future that it, naturally, resisted. That sort of Manichean outlook, familiar from the current national administration, needed an enemy, a tired, slothful, hidebound resister, and the FAS faculty were the only group that could be pressed into service. No way to run anything, let alone a university.

I've been on leave this year, so not Crimson-watching so much, but certainly last year what we found was an editorial staff largely manipulated by LS, impressed by nods to the student body, and generally possessed of a belief that he and nobody else at the institution cared about their needs (often defined simply by their wants: calendar reform, no Moral Reasoning, student cafes replacing reference rooms, etc.). Last year the reporting staff did much better, and in fact delivered the most intelligent and nuanced reporting I've seen in c. 30 years around Harvard.

That said, I share the reported view of Prof. Hamburger that faculty should turn up to the monthly 1 1/2 hour meetings in much greater numbers than we have seen in recent years.
 

As is frequently the case, I find myself wishing that I'd put something as eloquently as Richard Thomas has.
 

9:42... in that headline, "grants" is a verb and not a noun. The word "grants" appears one other time in the story--when Benedict Gross uses it in a direct quote. So there goes your argument about the Crimson referring to Summers as a philanthropist. You could maybe argue that it's a poorly written headline, but that's it.

I'm more willing to entertain Richard's idea that the president is easier and more entertaining to cover than the various deans and faculty. In some aspects, that may be true.

But for the sake of argument, a counter to both those ideas: pre-Summers (yes, there was such an era) the Crimson covered Rudenstine heavily for ten years, and he did not "spend for the students." (Or at least he wasn't known for it.) He spent most of his time fundraising, and was criticized for being distant. And in comparison to Summers, he did not provide much fodder for the various cannons... arguably not "entertaining."

So why cover him (or her!) like it's a big deal? It's not for the reasons that you cited, but simply that the presidency of Harvard is an important position in American higher education, and what that person does matters. He's a public figure. Does your beef have to do with coverage of the presidency in general, or Summers in particular? It would seem the latter.

That said, I'd be interested to know what parts of the deanery and administration you would like to see covered that are not. And is this a problem you have with the Crimson, or press coverage of Harvard in general?

Re: Harvard students as "abused"... I don't know that that word choice is quite accurate, but after the Rudenstine presidency, the Corporation wanted to make the College--and undergraduate education--a priority. And Harvard College for many years lacked some of the student facilities common at other schools--notably, a student center... So I don't know that that was just the Crimson; the University had set improvement of the College and its life as part of Harvard's agenda. News coverage has to address the success or failure of that agenda to some extent.

In addition, Harvard students are famously less happy than their counterparts at other schools. While this doesn't make them "abused," shouldn't that be covered? (The story you cited, for example, mentioned a Globe story referencing 2002 senior surveys and comments about Harvard social life.)
 

That anyone would subscribe to a lazy faculty's argument that central administration is honestly manipulating their agendas to make them "less substantive" is depressing for anyone who cares about this University. And the fact that you, Richard, find this a "serious argument" so easily is depressing for anyone who cares about this blog. It's like the under-achieving student's parents complaining that the teacher is not properly challenging the child, as if that's an excuse for missing class. This strikes me as a very modern sort of argument, certainly not an inspiring one. Perhaps one day, Richard, you will see that though many in the FAS may have been right about Summers, that's still not enough to bring their (decision-making) average above the Mendoza line.
 

Anonymous 7:22...I've been swayed by some of the arguments posted here. I'd say my position is somewhere between the Crimson's and what I wrote yesterday.
 

Great comments Emu.
 

Waiting Emu, Friday's Crimson had another example of Summers successfully casting himself in the role of private philanthropist to the students, by providing them beer and coffee they could not otherwise have: "For example, former President Lawrence H. Summers recognized these structural obstacles to improving the undergraduate experience using traditional means—and so he chose to fund the Cambridge Queen’s Head Pub and Lamont Café with his own discretionary fund." (The Right President? by several students.)