Editor’s note: The author of this letter made themselves known to the editorial board, as per The Express’ policy. Their name has been withheld by request. The author, although self-identified as an “Express Insider,” is not on staff of The Express.
I’ve come to the realization that the Express Editorial Board and its staff this semester — and that’s coming from my own personal observations and interactions with the staff — is perhaps the hardest working, most diligent and ambitious news crew out of all publications I’ve witnessed and worked with so far — it’s also the most disagreeable.
And when it comes to the Editorial Board supporting Jim Acosta, a yellow journalistic low-life with a chip on his shoulder, I only express disappointment on behalf of the Express, then great delight that they give me the chance to dispute and demolish this abomination of an “editorial” filled with numerous inaccuracies.
I assume whoever wrote this editorial (I assume it was Ms. Editor-in-Chief), wrote this last minute without doing the proper research on this abominable piece of work, sitting in front of her computer, typing the words into a text document, while sipping coffee in the middle of night before the deadline in support of a political provocateur and borderline madman. (If it isn’t, take everything that I wrote in this paragraph with a grain of salt).
Then, she has the shameless audacity and courage (which I admire) to back such an obnoxious and vile human being that the mainstream media instantly — and by default — rallies behind simply because Jim “Loser” Acosta, the Chief White House Correspondent of Fake News Network, had his press pass revoked, not only for being rude, but also for placing his hands on a defenseless woman while she was trying to take away the microphone he had been hogging the entire time with his stupid and uncreative questions. Then, he cried his way to his bosses at Fake News headquarters to get it reinstated. Boohoo.
The thing is about the media and press — and I being part of it — is that I don’t even trust it. I can agree on one thing in this editorial that “without free press, on a local level, this community college newspaper would not exist.” However, my only complaint is that this newspaper isn’t being creative. It’s regurgitating the same narrative over and over again by every news publication and that triggers me A LOT. When Fake News Network does it, I’m fine with it. When a community college newspaper does it, I’m very disappointed especially when they also propagate the same kind of fake news.
But perhaps my biggest disappointment about this editorial is that the video that was mentioned on being “doctored” wasn’t even doctored at all. For a person like me who has years of video editing experience and I actually mean YEARS, I’ll make it easy for you editors to understand. When you’re trying to compress a video down from multi-media format such as .mp4 into a .gif (the “doctored” video), the compression from a high quality to lower quality bitrate is going to result in something called “bit-loss” which in other words, mean loss of data, which is why the video looks slowed down. Was it doctored? Technically no. If it were, you’d see discrepancies in the video with obvious cuts and pauses, which even liberal and anti-Trump news outlets such as BuzzFeed and the Washington Post agree with me in that there was NO tampering. The “doctored” video was NOT doctored.
Editor’s note: The Washington Post called the video doctored and BuzzFeed News explained how the video that was tweeted from the White House allowed Acosta’s movements to appear faster and harsher.
Besides my grievances, I truly enjoyed this semester with all of you folks. When a nobody like me shows up halfway into the semester and without any proper introduction, it’s great that I felt like I was part of the team as I assimilated quickly into your ranks. Ms. Forschen has done a wonderful job managing and leading this band of noble and honest journalists (besides her…) along with this merry band of hardworking and ambitious editors. It is with this solemn occasion that even though I may disagree with some of you in class, just know that I’m sarcastic — 60 percent.
— Name withheld by request
