Marry me J.B.!

The Daily Nebraskan can't talk to university administrators, Sarah Palin is going on Sean Hannity and George W. Bush is a man of upstanding moral character. Okay, one of these things isn't true - but still - they all have something in common.

Or lack something in common.

Journalistic balls. Cahones. Junk.

The DN has plenty of balls, don't get me wrong: Between Editor Brian Hernandez, Managing Editor Katie Steiner and resident pain-in-the-ass Andy Boyle, there's no lack of balls at the Daily Nebraskan this year. And it has nothing to do with their lack of trying. They've most certainly yelled until they were blue in the face, and done just about all they can in terms of diplomacy. No, the DN is clearly without fault.

I could place more blame on the publications and people not involved in the dispute - i.e., the Journal Star and the professors at the College of Journalism and Mass Communications. Instead of frying the bigger fish, the Journal Star (individual reporters aside, I'm sure) has chosen to ignore the DN's problem, essentially taking advantage of the paper's inconvenience.

This seems true, too, of the way all media outlets handle their "competitors" struggles. Instead of competing against those who are unfair or untrue - an ethical battle - they fight as businesses. Decisions are made with money in mind, not journalism. Clearly, the medias' unwillingness to take on the more difficult challenges is the result of an unwillingness to take a hit financially; and while the desk editors and reporters aren't immediately to blame, they do continue to put up with a system that puts, at the bottom of the list, both their best interests and the best interests of those they serve.

But the country's reporters and editors and news businesspeople can't be entirely to blame. The public - particularly the educated public (CoJMC professors included) - are as well. People well aware of the weakening of the media that is happening both within the university and nationally have failed to act. They still buy the newspaper. They still read the "Catty Girls" and 20 stories a day about Husker Football.

Those who don't, and read the "real newspapers" instead - the hipsters, the businessmen, the UNL professors, even the Harvey Perlmans - they miss out on the biggest point of all:

The Best media are the Local media. The local media are the real voices of the people they sell papers to. If anyone should have access to the university administration, it should be the paper that targets the audience actually subject the decisions made by the administration. If they should be required to talk to ANY group of people, it should clearly be the people who actually care about what they are doing...or should care.

Those people, the ones in a position to apply pressure from within, are the ones who fail most. The professors who say nothing fail; they have no balls. The DN and UNL alumni who say nothing fail; they have no balls. The students who are stupid enough not to care about the DN fail as well; but they lost their balls a long time ago when they joined a fraternity and started business school.

Ultimately, if the people don't get it, there's no point. If they don't have the balls to want more than desk job in a cubicle and $8,000 in credit card debt, they aren't worth a damn. They'll get it soon enough; and when they do understand, they'll grow a pair. But until then, there is nothing the DN or the New York Times can do to help them.

I have no solution for the DN's problem, because it doesn't need one right now. The university isn't going to "tip off" the DN to any news that they wouldn't promote via their PR people anyway. And if they won't answer the DN's questions effectively and immediately, fuck them. They should want the DN to call them. J.B. Milliken should have Andy Boyle on speed dial. Because ultimately, what goes in paper comes back to haunt people. Maybe the DN goes out of business. Maybe the journalism industry does. But when that happens, and the lazy people with no balls figure stuff out, and when push comes to shove, the greedy fucks who didn't spend the time to do the right thing or to put their side in print will pay the price of history.