Editor, Daily Nexus,

I want to commend our elected Associated Students Legislative Council for taking a stance against the Daily Nexus. By proposing and later retracting their proposal to freeze the Nexus’ funds, they showed they are both responsive to students and accountable.

UCSB students are waiting to see that same sort of accountability from the Daily Nexus. This periodical is known to publish racist, sexist and homophobic articles – and the Nexus seems too comfortable with that reputation. Recently, the defense of the Nexus has rested on the claim that interference with their free speech prevents their ability to be a voice of the students, but first, they need to be a voice of the students!

At the recent “Town Hall Meeting to Discuss the Nexus,” Editor in Chief Kaitlin Pike acknowledged the Daily Nexus’ history of publishing articles, such as opinion and Weather pieces by paid columnists, that readers have found offensive and insensitive. They offered some simple solutions. One: Write a letter to the editor. Two: Write for the Nexus. The fundamental problem with these solutions is that they are not solutions! I have written letters to the editor and they were not published. Second, it does not change the fact that Nexus writers are not properly trained for a world-renowned university newspaper.

However, I have a few simple solutions of my own, but these are for the Daily Nexus. First, Google “journalistic integrity.” As the sole print representing UCSB students, faculty and alumni, you may want to contemplate this apparently foreign concept. Secondly, the Nexus should remember the contract that Black Student Union, Queer Student Union and El Congreso made with the Daily Nexus three years ago about proper representation. This should shake what Pike described as “laziness on all of [the Nexus’] parts.”

And please, realize that there is no better way to dig out of your $600,000 debt than to establish credibility in this community.

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