A poster two items below chastises me for my “touching” devotion to the Crimson, and suggests that the Crimson is being manipulated by both faculty and administration. Perhaps. Although—in the spirt of my touching devotion—it’s hard to look at any particular story and say that they’ve run something that wasn’t newsworthy. I’ve always thought that, if anything, the Crimson is overly deferential to the powers-that-be. Lately, though, they’ve shown an admirable feistiness; breaking the news of Kirby’s firing was a big story.

(I understand, by the way, that Crimson managing editor Zachary M. Seward will be taking some time off to catch his breath. A shame: Seward, author of the recent two-part series on how Mass Hall handled the 1/14 crisis, has good instincts and good sources. Let’s hope his successor builds on all the good work he has done.)

The poster suggests that anyone looking for neutral information should turn to Harvard Magazine and its report on the latest faculty meeting. To which I say, by all means. The more sources of information, the better. There are, as I learned during my long-ago graduate seminar with Bud Bailyn, many different approaches to historiography, and one must approach all of them with a healthy skepticism.

Harvard Magazine is generally not the most neutral source of news, but it did an excellent, thorough, and fair report of last winter’s troubles. Its report on the faculty meeting is a transcription of that meeting, and it makes for fascinating reading. There is no editorial comment whatsoever, but at times you can viscerally feel how uncomfortable and tense that meeting must have been, as one professor after another rose to ask pointed and painful questions.