By Dustin Rutledge
I’m writing in response to a viewpoint column “Gun laws ridiculous; Texas should secede” that was published on April 12. In the column, the author presented a sarcastic case for gun control and Texas succession.
In my Writing for Media Markets class last semester we stressed the importance of being professional in our writing.
Professionalism comes from writing columns that inform an audience. The author would have been more professional in her viewpoint if she would have actually informed the readers of her own view of gun control.
Instead she used sarcasm to make fun the current gun control debate and implied Texas should secede from the United States because of it.
The Lariat’s own website says that it’s published “as a service to the Baylor community and as a laboratory newspaper for aspiring journalists.”
The paper is doing a disservice to aspiring journalists by publishing sarcastic columns that poke fun at current events instead of publishing columns that inform the readers.
The Lariat should be focused on publishing professional columns that help aspiring journalists sharpen their journalism skills and leave the sarcastic pieces to personal blogs and the Rope.
– Dustin Rutledge,
McKinney senior
