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No one really knows who we are or why we do what we do. Most students just do the crossword puzzle, anyway, so there is no point in wondering about the inner-workings of the student newspaper. There are, however, those few students who do venture a guess as to the how's and why's of The Hatchet. It's these students - the more curious Colonials - who have provided me with some of my most secretly fun moments at GW.
When people begin to think aloud about the motivations or the functioning of The Hatchet, my ears start to tingle. Since most of the people I interact with wouldn't know that I work here, it's at these moments when I'm privy to some fairly gross mischaracterizations of The Hatchet: "The Hatchet misquotes everyone! Don't ever talk to them ... The Hatchet is biased against Students for the Advancement of Modern Ballet Dance in Urban Areas because they didn't cover our event ... I've given up on reading The Hatchet, nothing they ever print is right ... Did you see that column? The opinions editor must be an idiot..." It goes on and on.
Some of my favorites occurred when I was just training for my role as opinions editor, about two years ago. Will Dempster, my editor at the time, was insistent on uniting all warring peoples of the earth, so he decided that the opinions section could be a good place for debates about the Arab-Israeli conflict. What a bad idea - all the mini-Thomas Friedmans of GW jumped into action, throwing their two cents into the discussion. In just a couple of weeks, I heard people accuse The Hatchet, almost simultaneously, of hating Palestinians, hating Jews and hating just about everyone.
The truth is The Hatchet doesn't have any feelings. It has never hated anyone in its 100-plus year history. It's also never liked anyone, for that matter. For all the complaints, however, The Hatchet really is the only comprehensive student voice on campus. It's the most consistent vehicle for pressuring the administration for policy changes or for highlighting the positives at GW that need to continue and the negatives that are in desperate need of attention.
