On Wednesday, Cornell Daily Sun Columnist Aaron Friedman ‘25 opined that critics of the Sun’s writing ought to respond with Letters to the Editor, or at least attach their names to the critique. We heartily concur.
Friedman’s article—which is worth a read for every Cornellian, journalist or not—is a statement of purpose for any college newspaper.
Cynicism is never the answer. Faulty premises should be questioned, but not at the expense of tearing down editors and writers, many of whom sacrifice hours of sleep and other commitments in order to keep the legacy going.
Aaron Friedman ’25
Just because Cornell is not Congress, where decisions impact three hundred million people, does not mean the news here is any less worthy of coverage than the news there. The role of a student newspaper is first and foremost to document what happens at our alma mater for posterity.
In so doing, a publication will make mistakes. We will get things wrong, and our audience—for whom we continue to document the happenings—does us a service by correcting our inaccuracies. Such corrections are most constructively delivered in emails to the Editor in Chief or a response published as a Letter to the Editor.
Instead, most criticism seems to happen on Reddit, where users are anonymous and often quite vicious. While honest criticism is a noble endeavor, anonymous insults are not. Indeed, Friedman’s article is a response to one Reddit thread from several months ago, wherein the anonymous redditors lambasted the Sun as an illiterate blog. The Review has been subject to a plethora of similar attacks:
In response to our coverage of Ann Coulter’s disruption last November we were mobbed by an army of commenters. On one post redditor u/W0lf_354 wrote: “fuck the cornell review and cornell republicans <3 such a joke. i really appreciate how those jokers are the laughing stock of campus.”
U/CornCornell ominously replied, “I’m surprised how the author has the courage to say fascist ideas with his name public.”
Some of the abuse targets our writers personally. After our coverage of the SA’s Plan B resolution, u/CornCornell again posted numerous threatening messages specifically naming two of our authors:
Dear Cornell Review, Please stop posting incel shit on r/Cornell. Thanks. Enzo and Cullen still got time to delete the articles exposing themselves as incels.
We thank the redditors that came to our defense, including u/Danigomes, who said:
I know Cornell Review is a conservative newspaper, but why are you so mad over this article? The author didn’t express any opinions on the subject, he simply stated what happened.
On February 21st, without prompting, a user named u/MaterialTomorrow610 posted to Cornell’s subreddit questioning our legitimacy as a campus organization:
Why does the Cornell Review exist? I’m legitimately confused as to their proposed utility.
Another commenter responded: “it exists because bigots and racists get admitted to cornell.”
The Reddit posts are frequently ad hominem and lacking context. When Ann Coulter recently launched her racist attack on Nikki Haley, u/Frogstacker posted a claim that the Review was, “Probably writing an article rn about how brave Ann coulter [sic] is and how we need to bring her back to campus ASAP to help her share these thoughts.”
In fact, we rebuked Coulter and criticized her comments harshly in an Op-Ed released shortly after the news broke. You’d think u/Frogstacker would realize and remove their post.
Many commenters make claims that are flat out wrong. In a post lamenting the potential end of affirmative action, one redditor commented, “consequently, the student body will now be as diverse as the Cornell Review.” This remark is comically misguided, and reveals much about the assumptions of the author; a campus as racially “diverse” as the Review would actually be substantially more diverse than Cornell is today. That being said, we much prefer to prioritize diversity of thought over diversity of skin color.
While there are some productive conversations to be had on Cornell-related social media, the amount of vitriol from the purported Ivy-League community is rather unbelievable. It speaks to the hostile environment surrounding open discourse at Cornell.
Reddit incentivizes short comments, not article-length responses. Criticism need not be especially well-reasoned or encompass all of an article. Users are encouraged to post first and ask questions later. All of this leads to less useful criticism for those writing articles. When every comment calls the author illiterate or tars them as a fascist, how is the student journalist to respond?
To be fair, we do invite comments by posting to Reddit, among other sites. But we’d rather suffer the abuse than muzzle ourselves. Our article promotion is no excuse for all the hostility. All of this is to say: we at the Review understand Friedman’s frustration.
We invite responses to our arguments. We welcome a battle over ideas on the pages of our website. We do not hesitate to publish opinions that diverge from those of our Editorial Board– sed contra, we love doing so. But an angry, anonymous comment online is not a way to respond to ideas one opposes. Think about the ideas, write a letter, and send it to us.
Cornell president Martha Pollack implored the incoming Class of 2026 to tolerate that with which they disagreed. Aaron Friedman of the Cornell Daily Sun seems to agree. We only ask for the same.
You’re going to encounter a lot of new ideas here. Some of them will fascinate and inspire you. Some you’re going to disagree with. And some, you might really hate. What I want you to do — and it isn’t always going to be easy — is listen to as many of them as you can.
President Martha Pollack
Letters to the Editor can be submitted to news.cornellreview@gmail.com.
