— In the course of commenting on a bizarre bit of analysis by one pseudonymous “Hillary Carter” of the Hoosier Review website on something I wrote, I conjectured that the Review was “a project of Indiana U. students who didn’t make the cut at the school newspaper.” While that portrayal was less than flattering, it turns out the truth is even worse: “Hillary Carter” and “Rush Reagan” are staff members of the Indiana student paper, and star writers for the Review as well.
Since the Review’s stock in trade is grading the work of the student paper, we have the specter of writers pseudonymously reviewing their own work for the Review. Review editor Joshua Claybourn seems to think it’s OK to hide this relationship from his readers, but it raises serious ethical concerns about the Review that would certainly be troubling in any adult newspaper/web site relationship.
The Review also wants a permalink. I’ll let my readers decide on that question: leave a comment if you have an opinion about my permalinking the Hoosier Review.
As a student at IU, I can tell you that the Hoosier Review has broken some big stories on campus and somewhat popular. I’m not sure what their relevance would be to your readers, but I know it’s important to IU.
Looking at your other college links though, it seems like they’re as important as those.
I wouldn’t link them – they seem pretty unethical to me. I think you were dead wrong on the Instapundit issue, but that aside those Hoosiers seem way out of line. It’s kinda creepy to think that Hillary and Rush pretend to be “on the team” with regard to the school newspaper, then secretly trash their coworkers on the web.
It’s cowardly. If you want to flame or critique, fine, go for it, but at least be man (or woman) enough to put your name on it.
When the other students find out who Hillary and Rush really are they’re gonna kick their asses right off of that student paper.
Good. They deserve it. Don’t link them.
I do not work for the daily paper anymore. Moreover, I don’t trash people at any paper. I review the substance of opinion columns.
This is what the Hoosier Review Editor told me:
“It’s just Hillary and Rush that have pseudonyms, and that’s because they work for the daily paper, and would risk dismissal. The large majority of people at HR are open with their Real Names. Please be kinder in the future (retract?). Heck, we’re willing to swap permalinks.”
Somebody’s lying about “Hillary;” maybe I should ask “Vince Foster.”
Who’s to say it’s not Richard lying? It’s clear from the posts that he goes for personal attacks, and not just at Hillary. That makes me very skeptical of him.
To top it all off, he’s coming out with some mysterious new application. I think he’s just begging for attention for his new app. But in the process he’s pissed a bunch of people off…maybe even Reynolds, and that’s not smart.
As for linking, I say link them because one of their columnists – Paul Musgrave – is really good.
If I’m lying about HR Editor-in-chief Joshua Claybourn’s e-mail, he can come on over here and say so. What I posted was a simple copy-and-paste.
I think regardless of Rush and Hillary, the Hoosier Review is a good site. Link it.
I’m probably biased because I’m an IU student too. I love HR. In all honesty, I like it better than most of the blogs you have linked.
I like the main writers and bloggers at HR. Rush and Hillary are in a seperate part of the web site so I don’t always check them, but they’re usually funny. I just think it’s important to distinguish between Hillary, who’s just in one part, from the rest of HR. I don’t know the specifics about all this other stuff though.
One thing I should point out to Hillary is that the comments to this blog are e-mailed to me along with the IP address of the computer they were made from. So far, all the pro-HR messages have come from the same IP address, 12.222.68.162
The e-mail asserting that Hillary works fo the campus paper also came from this IP, as these headers indicate:
Received: from JOSHUA ([12.222.68.162]) by sccimhc01.insightbb.com (InterMail vM.4.01.03.27 201-229-121-127-20010626) with ESMTP id <20020513042307.LJBF2275.sccimhc01.insightbb.com@JOSHUA> for <[email protected]>; Mon, 13 May 2002 04:23:07 +0000
Reply-To: <[email protected]>
From: “Hoosier Review” <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 23:23:17 -0500
Organization: Hoosier Review
Message-ID: <001b01c1fa35$e83a2560$6501a8c0@JOSHUA>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=”US-ASCII”
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook, Build 10.0.2627
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000
Importance: Normal
In-Reply-To: <3CDEDC60.22681.70A6CF@localhost>
X-Server: VPOP3 V1.5.0b – Registered
Subject: RE: yuk
It’s just Hillary and Rush that have pseudonyms, and that’s because they work for the daily paper,…
—
So Hillary e-mails me that she works for the paper, and then publishes in HR that she doesn’t, and I do shoddy research.
Kids, you really have to try harder to pull off this kind of a scam, but I admire your spunk. In my day, all we had for fun on campus was drugs, sex, and revolution – you guys can act a fool in front the whole Internet.
Cool.
That happens when we’re all at a party together and on the same network, genius.
Uh…Richard? As a long time reader of Omphalos and someone without any vested interest in the HR whatsoever – I go to some other hoity-toity east cost college – I’ve got to say that, while “Hillary Carter” might have overreacted at first, you haven’t exactly covered yourself in glory since then. I’m being polite, and the often leads to misunderstandings, so let me be blunt (but understand that I really like you & your site): you’re pretty much in the wrong here, and quite obviously so to most outsiders.
It’s not so much the merits of the case as the really uncharacteristically (for you) low-class personal attacks on not only her, but her publication, that make you look bad. But regardless of who’s lying and who’s not lying about whether they work for the main paper at IU (and has it occurred to anyone that, if she still does work for the paper, she HAS to lie in public like this in case somebody from the paper sees?), it behooves you not to descend into ad hominem.
Please don’t kill me for this; I’m just calling them as I see
Give ’em a permalink – it’s a good site.
They’ve asked for a permalink? The readers are supposed to decide? Can we vote on the topic of your next entry? I’ve never seen weblog democracy in action before.
I’ve always been pretty totalitarian about it, myself: I link sites because I think they deserve it, not because they want it or ask for it. I think you have to go to Google for that.
As someone who also blogs under a pseudonym, I’m sensitive to the fact that some of us have valid reasons for needing anonymity.
I don’t work for the Arizona Republic, but I write a lot about it and its writers. How can my readers be sure that I don’t work there and that I’m not reviewing my own work? They can’t, but it doesn’t really matter. If my comments about the paper and its content are valid, my readers will know. If I’m puffing something or someone unduly, my readers will also see that and move on. It’s not like any blog is the equivalent of the NY Times or the Oprah Book Club where a favorable mention will make or break a writer’s career.
With that background in mind, I have to say that your comments have the feel of someone grasping to find a way to justify some of your intemperate comments. I am a devotee of your site and will continue to read. However, rather than trying to find reasons to criticize them, it seems to me that this is an instance where the best solution is to admit that you made a minor mistake and move on.
Sure there are valid reasons for being anonymous. It is somewhat sleazy, though, to be posting anon reviews of the paper you work for. That’s quite different from what you, Juan Gato, and presumably others are doing.
It’s kinda freaky, though, to send Bennett email saying one thing then posting something else on your website. As for most of the comments made last night/early this morning, even without the IP address it was fairly obvious that they were all written by the same person. The tone and style were exactly the same on all of them. I haven’t read the Hoosier myself, but if that’s an example of the quality of their work, I don’t think I’m going to be a big fan.
It’s also bizarre to be demanding links from someone you don’t like.
The same person sent me e-mail from several different accounts and then posted a whole series of comments here with Hotmail addresses. That person then wrote in the Hoser Review that I lied when I quoted their claim that “Hillary” (the person who sent me the mail) was on the school paper. As college pranks go, this one is exceptionally lame.
Since I am (last time I checked, anyway) Managing Editor of Hoosier Review, I thought I might have something to add here. Please bear in mind that I’ve been on vacation for the past week or so, and I only found out about this controversy today.
Clarification: Probably 90% of HR writers are not either current or past IDS writers … nor are we even people who tried to write for the IDS. In fact, some of them (like us) wouldn’t really like to write for the IDS, because we like the flexibility and the spontaneity of the Internet. For myself, I try to write a lot, but most of the stuff I write doesn’t fit into any real genre (like comparing basketball coach Mike Davis with former IU pres Herman Wells), is intended for very narrow audiences, or is simply written for fun. The IDS doesn’t let you do that. And it simply doesn’t let you pull a Jane Galt or Tom Tomorrow and post pictures of your dog.
Criticizing people for not being on the staff of the IDS is like criticizing the staff of the Washington Monthly for not being on USA Today’s staff. It’s just not the sort of thing we’re interested in. The IDS has their audience, and we have ours. We just like ours better.
Sincerely,
Paul Musgrave
Nice attempt at deflection, Paul, but we’re way past that one now.
We’re currently dealing with the issue of the person claiming to be “Hillary” telling me in e-mail that she does in fact write for the IDS, and then calling me a liar when I report same on this site.
As the managing editor of that zine, you’re responsible for those remarks.
It’s funny that the pro-HR comments get deleted or questioned because they’re from AOL addresses. But anti ones stay.
I also noticed that two or three critical comments posted yesterday under other posts are now gone. “Bennett the Communist”? “Bennett the censor”?
Hell, I’ll be surprised if this comment makes the cut either.
Yes, it’s shocking.