I am writing in response to Erin Hendricks' article on the Learning Communities. I was completely taken aback by the article she wrote, which was disingenuous and written with an agenda to spin the Learning Communities in a bad light.
I was working at the front desk for the Learning Communities/Orientation Office when Ms. Hendricks stopped by to ask for an interview with the Director of the Learning Communities, and also asked for a list of Learning Community residents to interview for a "general article." The LC Director was out but I assured Ms. Hendricks that the office would love to be as helpful as possible with the article.
When the director returned she openly gave Ms. Hendricks an interview and offered a long list of names of Learning Community residents to interview for the article. You can imagine my shock when I picked up Friday's Daily Orange and discovered not one of the names provided to Ms. Hendricks was used in the article. One can only assume these students actually liked the learning communities and thus did not fit Ms. Hendrick's preplanned agenda to cast a successful program at the behest of many hard workers as a failing entity.
I find Ms. Hendrick's activities unethical and lacking of journalistic integrity. If she was planning to write an article on the Learning Communities with specific complaints, she should have been forthright from the beginning when she approached the LC office. Instead she was deceitful and shady, and clearly had the direction of her article planned before she interviewed anyone. The fact that this type of Fox News "journalism" is allowed in The D.O., a respectable paper, is an outrage and a disservice to a quality publication. If The D.O. staff has any degree of journalistic integrity left, they will reprimand Ms Hendricks for her deceitful and manipulative behavior.
Thank you,
Kevin Maley
Junior political science major
Student staff assistant: Office of Learning Communities/Office of Orientation and Transition Service
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