The Collegian's actions last week reminded me of a time long past: 1898, to be exact. Sure, hate and bigotry were widespread at that time in history, but that's not the point; 1898 was the year when two newspapers used their influence to essentially cause a war between the United States and Spain. Those newspapers published articles and pictures that excited hostility toward Spain from the American public.

This war was a famous and tragic example of newspapers inventing news, instead of simply reporting it. By printing Chris Kovalchick's letter last week, the Collegian did the same thing. There is no way that the editors did not expect the letter to have the repercussions that it inevitably did have.

Rather, I believe that they printed Kovalchick's letter with specific goals in mind. The letter jumpstarted the opinion section of the paper, which had been rather stale to this point in the semester. The erroneous association between Chris Kovalchick and USG served to fan the flames of anti-USG sentiment.

It gave the Collegian's writers something to write about, in what is otherwise a slow news cycle. Finally, it caused more people to read the Collegian, in order to see what would be said about the situation.