Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Free Newspapers For All

As members of THE HOYA’s Editorial Board, we are all great believers in the importance of newspapers. As such, we’d like to applaud the progress, symbolic and actual, made by the successful partnership of GUSA and InterHall in working with the university to bring The New York Times, The Washington Post and USA Today to our campus, free for all GOCard holders. Together with additional funding from The Corp, these institutions have spent a great amount of time negotiating this idea’s tricky route from student association presidential platform to real implementation. The results are enough to make the grimace of even the sternest of student critics soften. The papers have been picked up with such enthusiasm by the student body that we can’t help but feel an expansion of the program would be more than welcome. Additionally, the feared increase in on-site waste has, so it seems, failed to materialize.

This episode reveals a great deal about the positive side of student life at Georgetown: a desire for easy access to worldview-broadening resources among the population. This has been channeled by a few individuals into a complex and not-inexpensive cooperation between institutions, and – the icing on the cake – a grateful campus that seems to have taken an instant liking to the system. Inevitably though, it isn’t perfect. The number of newspapers is, at present, unequal to the population of students that wish to read them; you’ve got to be quick to the dispensers if you want your fix. This is a great mirror of Hoya desire to see the world beyond Healy lawn and something the current GUSA administration needs to keep an eye on. If interest remains high, we hope an expansion of the program is something that will remain in its plans for the coming years. However, the existence of the program itself is something to be lauded and high praise is due to all those involved.

The one truly glaring error in the whole affair is the (surely unlikely) possibility that a few students here and there might peruse a New York Times editorial on a Tuesday or Friday and miss the challenging, insightful and undoubtedly modest proclamations of their fellows here at THE HOYA. And if David Brooks starts complaining about the food at Leo’s, we might be in for a little competition.

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