Reynalds’ needs accountability

Editor,

Once again this week, the opinion page is full of responses — largely negative ones — to Jeremy Reynalds’ most recent column. Not only that, but the responses are more often keyed not to Reynalds’ particular issue for the week but to the Daily Lobo’s readers’ frustrations that Reynalds’ column seems to have little to do with UNM or with their lives in particular.

This is my beef as well –– not that Reynalds writes as a conservative Christian, but that he seems to do so from within a vacuum, at least regarding UNM. However, the Lobo has made it clear that Reynalds’ column is appropriate because the Lobo is the independent voice of UNM and because Reynalds’ himself is a UNM alumnus. In other words, he’s part of the UNM community.

But he isn’t, as far as I can tell. His critique of how we celebrate Easter from a few weeks ago used an America Online Easter site for its evidence rather than anything that is or has been happening on UNM’s campus. Last Friday’s column didn’t mention UNM at all either. Certainly, the issues Reynalds writes about are issues that UNM is concerned with, but they’re not written in a way that reflects any familiarity with the UNM community at large.

It seems to me that further frustration over Reynalds’ column comes from his lack of accountability. He’s given a lot of space and seems to be allowed to write about whatever he wants, no matter what effect his words have on the UNM community. Our only recourse as readers is to write letters to the editor. However, even this is largely futile.

Terrance Cook’s letter to the editor in Tuesday’s Lobo urges dialogue and discussion in responses to Reynalds’ columns, but where’s the dialogue or discussion? Even when my letters about Reynalds have been printed in the past, I don’t feel that I’ve become involved in any type of dialogue because Reynalds is under no compunction to respond to or defend his ideas. And he doesn’t seem to be around the UNM campus, so I can’t approach him to have a conversation.

So, if Reynalds will be contributing his column next fall, I offer him the following challenge:

1. Spend some more time on campus and become more familiar with UNM. Keep writing about the issues that matter to you, but do so from within the context of the University. Before you condemn your readers, get to know us a little better. Find some evidence for your claims that we don’t, for example, know how to celebrate Easter anymore.

If you can defend your arguments by evidence from UNM itself, I bet you’ll find your readership listens more closely to you.

2. If a particular column results in an deluge of letters to the editor, devote another column to the same topic. Engage in a discussion and respond to your actual readers rather than browbeat us week after week. You’re writing about some pretty major issues — issues that many of us are concerned with.

If you really want to convince us of something, then be accountable for your words and ideas by responding to challenges to them.

Kristen Hague

Graduate Student