At Harvard, Propaganda
Posted on June 6th, 2006 in Uncategorized | No Comments »
A week or so ago, I received a fatuous publication from Harvard in the mail, something called “The Yard.” After skimming through it and recognizing it as Harvard-funded agitprop, I placed it gently in the circular file next to my desk, and wondered, if only for a moment, why Harvard needed to spend perfectly good money on another extraneous publication. How many scholarships would “The Yard” (even the name is dumb) consume?
Now Zach Seward in the Wall Street Journal has answered my question. In an article titled “Colleges Want More Rah, Rah from Magazines,” Seward reports that colleges across the country are getting cranky about the actual reporting done by their alumni magazines, and that Harvard has grown so disaffected with Harvard Magazine that it has created that fine publication, “The Yard.”
Seward writes,
Harvard Magazine has covered Mr. Summers’s downfall as aggressively as any media outlet, [blogger’s lament: Hello, Zach?] opening its letters section to furious alumni and offering frank news reports on the campus row. But now university administrators, worried that the bimonthly magazine has gone over the line, have launched a new glossy publication to refocus their message to alumni. The new magazine’s second issue was distributed last month, and it contains scant mention of Mr. Summers’s troubles, his resignation or the crisis that has enveloped the university.
I may be old-fashioned, but still, it’s useful to point out that Harvard’s motto is Latin for truth. Harvard Magazine has done an excellent job of covering the Summers controversies thoroughly but fairly. Its presentation has been balanced and non-partisan. Isn’t that what Harvard alumni want? This is, after all, a pretty intelligent group.
And Seward doesn’t even get into the enormous pressures that editor John Rosenberg has faced in the Summers era: the way that Summers forced him to include a monthly “letter from the president,” even though Summers “wrote” it once, then abandoned the project; the way that Summers threatened to cut off the magazine’s use of the Harvard name and access to the alumni database. (Or so I’m told, though not by Rosenberg.) Yet you’d never get a glimpse of this behind-the-scenes pressure in the editorial tone of the magazine, which is truly a testament to its editor.
In its attack on its alumni magazine, Harvard aligns itself with other universities which have gone down the same road, such as Notre Dame and Baylorâboth of which were driven by their adherence to religious dogma. Is this really a club Harvard wants to be a part of?
Well, apparently yes. Because Harvard’s motivation is its allegiance to the god of money.
At Harvard, Seward writes, leading fund-raisers determined that Harvard Magazine was no longer serving their best interests, according to two individuals in the development office.
You know, when “leading fundraisers” are deciding that a magazine’s quest to report the truth is not in the university’s best interests, that university has truly lost its way.
Seward continues: Sarah Friedell, a spokeswoman for Harvard, says The Yard was launched “to increase efficiencies,” replacing three other publications.
About which one must say two things.
First, anytime someone says something as awkward and artificial as “increase efficiencies,” you know they’re full of it. Second, just how many spokespeople does Harvard have? There’s an easy answer: Too many.
“The Yard” is an accurate reflection of how Harvard’s approach to journalists and truth grew particularly calculated, cynical and political during the Summers’ era.