The new opinion page editor of The Daily Tar Heel, for some reason, felt compelled to swear in his first column. I guess Adam Storck considers vulgarity to be edgy. It’s not. No surprise, then, that Storck is looking for “snarky” people to join the opinion page. What’s going to make this interesting is the possibility for fireworks between Storck and the paper’s new public editor, Andrew Jones. Jones writes that he wants to be an Army officer when he graduates and, while he believes the paper plays an important role for the university, he has no problem criticizing it. Writes Jones in his first column as the watchdog:
During the past few years I have seen the paper go beyond free speech and at times become intentionally disrespectful in order to create controversy. Sources have been misquoted and misattributed. The paper is here to inform, serve and create discussion. Too frequently, though, it has gone beyond these bounds, and when this happens, it is the readers who lose out.
These are two writers to watch.