Letter writer errs in referring to Chronicle coverage

Although purists of grammar might decry certain Chronicle writers' confusion of "its" and "it's" or irksome split infinitives, I have to disagree with Tal Hirshberg's negative characterization of the paper as a whole in his April 19 letter. Hirshberg states correctly that The Chronicle serves as the primary source of news for Duke students. As such, it has a very specific target audience, and the paper's decisions on what stories to run have fit that audience's needs and desires to a tee.

Hirshberg must have missed the information session when he visited Duke, because it should be clear that to a great number of Duke students, basketball is indeed important, as petty and puerile as that might seem to more worldly Chronicle readers. He may not like reading about Krzyzewskiville, and I may not care in the slightest about changes at the Freeman Center for Jewish Life, but the fact is that these are issues that concern large portions of the readership. And before anyone cries foul, I recognize that national and international news are also extremely important to educated Duke students--that's why The Chronicle pays for and prints wire service stories written and edited by professional reporters that are anything but "generic." We may grow tired of seeing issue after issue of crime reports and what we consider uninteresting stories, but as far as serving the needs of its readers is concerned, The Chronicle has performed quite well.

Andrew Furlow

Trinity '05