Editorial: A word to the unwise: we're still here

Published Feb. 18, 2005

You've been warned.

For 50 years, you've been warned. For half a century, we've been here, living up to our legacy as the often racy and off-color (we are green, after all, not black and gold) student-driven bastard child of MU's journalism community.

As The Maneater celebrates its birthday, we reminisce by reviewing the yellowed yet glorious premiere issue of 1955: the one that gave us our name, our mission, our purpose.

When reading the prophetic words of Maneater founder Joel Gold, that this student newspaper would be "a tiger with fangs bared and claws sharpened, ready to analyze the facts and then to pounce," we long to teleport to the days when the newspaper was fighting the good fight with reporters who "sneak into meetings, eavesdrop on private party business and generally get into your hair," as Gold wrote with vigor.

And then we realize we're living them. We're still that tiger, ready to pounce on controversy and create our own in the process.

You've been warned because it still takes a giant barricade to keep us out of meetings. Police guarding wrongfully closed MSA impeachment hearings last year couldn't keep Maneater reporters from knowing what happened within the walls of Wrench Auditorium that night. It's damn hard to part The Maneater from a story that needs to be told.

You've been warned because we spark change. In 1975, The Maneater uncovered and released discrepancies with the main campus computer system containing information on every MU student. A series of articles reporting the confusion students faced as a result of the botched system prompted an investigation that revealed administrative foul play as the root of the problem. The Maneater uncovered even more dirt on UM system President C. Bryce Ratchford — activities such as lobbying and favors on the university's dime — prompting Ratchford to resign.

Our eight years of nagging insistence, through news coverage and heated editorials, on the passage of the sexual-orientation clause into MU's non-discrimination policy kept the issue on the table and at the forefront of the Board of Curators' agenda. We were such tireless advocates of that clause, we couldn't help but rejoice when it passed last year.

We supported protesters of South African apartheid and led rallies against bans on coed visitation in residence halls. We weren't timid then, and we aren't timid now.

You've been warned because we make mistakes. Big, bold, embarrassing mistakes that have alienated parts of the campus and nearly brought us major lawsuits. Like the time a Maneater reporter relied on false rumors from an anonymous source accusing MSA presidential candidate Josh Reed of thefts in Laws Hall in 1999. A long retraction and serious threats of libel lawsuits humbled the entire Maneater staff and forced it to toughen its scruples.

In 2001, The Maneater met its own Jayson Blair in the form of Michael LaPlaca, who cooked quotes in a Maneater story. Or the time in 2002, when The Maneater failed to cover MU's first black Homecoming king and queen in 17 years made an extremely historic event seem trivial and made The Maneater appear shallow and insensitive. And we still feel the repercussions of our frequently tense relationship with the Greek community.

A learning newspaper, The Maneater awaits the next 50 years with knowledge from its mistakes as well as its successes. One thing that won't change is our continual effort to better represent the student body, the very reason we exist. Our past has show us our sport spots — the future is our chance to fix them.

You've been warned because, while we bend and shape and grow with each passing decade, we'd like to think we're still the same rowdy, audacious, smart-alecky student journalists we were in 1955.