Tensions are running high at The Carletonian this week as the Bald Spot editors were disappointed yet again to learn that the Bald Spot would not get a front page article. For each edition of The Carletonian, a few select articles are chosen for the front page. These are often news articles, but articles in the Features and Viewpoint sections have been chosen too. This leaves the Bald Spot editors wondering why exactly they so often are excluded.
A recent poll of Carleton students revealed that while only 12.6% of Carleton students read The Carletonian regularly, 74.3% regularly read The Bald Spot. These numbers become even more telling when looking at polling of professors: 3.8% of professors read The Carletonian, but 92% read The Bald Spot.
“It’s not that I don’t enjoy The Carletonian,” said one professor. “The Bald Spot just gives me more of an idea of what’s happening on campus.”
Given The Bald Spot’s overwhelming popularity and the recent polls that have shown it to be considered far more trustworthy than The Carletonian, there is only one logical reason it has yet to have a front page article: a conspiracy.
This theory was recently confirmed in leaked emails between the Editors-in-Chief of The Carletonian.
“Anything but the blad [sic] spot,” said one of the Editors in what appeared to be a quickly typed email. “We need to make sure we have literally anything else to put on the front page. If we can’t find anything else we can always just make it a big picture of my dog.”
The Bald Spot editors were “dismayed” by that news.
“We’ve been working so hard to make the front page,” said one of the editors. “It’s been my goal ever since I was five to have an article from my section featured so prominently, so to learn that we were being so callously ignored was a bit heartbreaking, really. It made me reconsider my commitment to The Carletonian when I first heard the news.”
Senior sources inside The Bald Spot revealed that there may be a remedy in the works: frustrated writers are considering going on strike. As they hope to get design and layout editors involved, it is possible that coming editions of The Carletonian may include a blank page where The Bald Spot typically is until demands for a spot on the front page are met.
A strike of that proportion would be nearly unprecedented, with the most recent strike being the Great Features Strike of 1993, in which the entire Features section went on strike due to lack of recognition from The Carletonian. The strike ended with The Carletonian caving to their numerous demands, although requests for information regarding the content of those demands have been ignored.
A mutiny against certain Bald Spot editors has also been suggested, although it’s unclear whether that would help the cause.
This situation is still evolving, but Bald Spot editors and contributors remain hopeful that it will be resolved without a strike.
“Having The Bald Spot in each edition of The Carletonian matters to us,” said an editor. “That’s why we care so much about the unfairness regarding the front page. But we still believe that we can work with the editors to keep producing The Bald Spot at its current high-quality standards, even as we work on a compromise.”
