Last Friday, Deseret News readers were exposed to the most vile of filth known to exist on the planet: the University of Utah’s student newspaper, the Daily Utah Chronicle.
Each year the Daily Utah Chronicle creates a rival issue; it’s a preview of that year’s “Holy War” between the University of Utah and Brigham Young University football teams. For each of the past five years, the Deseret News and the Salt Lake Tribune have included a copy of the rival issue with their regular paper.
This year, that apparently pissed some readers off.
Before we get any further, it’s important to remember that sports are important. And of all the important sports, football is the most importantest. A victory by your team gives you bragging rights for a whole year—that is, of course, if you find yourself in a social circle that cares about things you had absolutely zero influence on*.
And the rivalry between the U of U and BYU is as heated as any rivalry that involves two below-average teams who—apart from two bowl appearance by Utah since 2005—haven’t been significant national contenders. On top of all that, the Deseret News is owned by the same money-grubbing corporation religious organization that owns BYU; so by sending out the Daily Utah Chronicle, the Deseret News is effectively endorsing everything that goes on at the University of Utah and practically shitting on the grave of Brigham Young.
Anyway, after all the apparent outrage by old people who have nothing better to do, the Deseret News posted the following letter to its readers:
A copy of the Daily Utah Chronicle was mistakenly inserted into Friday’s Deseret News by our production partner Media One. The insertion was not approved by the Deseret News. We sincerely regret the confusion this created.
Apart from the unnecessary need to place the blame squarely on Media One, this seems like a perfectly acceptable response. They explained what happened and apologized. Everyone can move on now.
Wait, what? There’s more to the letter?
The content of the Chronicle insert fell far below Deseret News editorial standards. We deeply apologize to our many readers who, like us, found this insert uncivil and sophomoric.
Two things:
First of all, saying the Chronicle’s editorial standards are too low is pretty ballsy coming from a publication that,
- Encourages its readers to think they’re better than everyone else,
- Shamelessly writes about pornography to increase its online traffic,
- And doesn’t know the difference between evidence and pulling stuff out of your ass.
Secondly, it’s completely unnecessary to call the Chronicle “uncivil and sophomoric.” Do you think Jesus** would point fingers and call people names?
Religion aside, the Deseret News is supposed to be a real newspaper; yet they’re ridiculing a little college publication! That’d be like having a someone who is good at things call out BYU players for having seven turnovers in the game.
The Chronicle did ultimately respond; but I think the bigger message here in that the Deseret News has lost any speck of integrity they may have had sitting around in the couch cushions.
And before they go questioning the journalistic integrity of the University of Utah, maybe the DesNews should take a look at how BYU limited journalists’ ability to report on the game. How is that for editorial standards?
*Stop saying “WE won” or “WE played well”. WE didn’t do anything; YOU sat on your couch like the fat fuck you are while THEY ran around a football field wearing tight pants and grabbing each other.
**Assuming he were real.