I know I may be a little biased on the issue as an aspiring journalist in the age of fake news and \u00a0\u201calternative facts\u201d but this is the opinion section, so hear me out.<\/span><\/p>\n @WOUNews is not news \u2014 and no, that\u2019s not The Western Journal\u2019s handle on social media.<\/span><\/p>\n Ever since I arrived at Western in 2014, it\u2019s bothered me that the public relations sector of the school \u2014 officially known as \u201cMarketing and Communications\u201d \u2014 has slapped the name \u201cWOU News\u201d on the school\u2019s social media accounts. And, I know, a social media account by any other name would still look as sweet, but this is a line I can\u2019t bear to see crossed.<\/span><\/p>\n Public relations is not news \u2014 it\u2019s propaganda.<\/span><\/p>\n The word \u201cnews\u201d is defined by Merriam-Webster as \u201ca report of recent events.\u201d Reporting the news is not what a public relations team does: they report good news. The kind of news that will bring up enrollment and increase donor funding, but not news about things which would damage Western\u2019s image \u2014 like the racist graffiti that was painted in April on a door in the Wolfpack Village, targeting a student living across the street from the university.<\/span><\/p>\n WOUNews and WOU Stories provide a shining image of Western alongside cute memes and artistically shot photos of our campus rather than a realistic picture of what being a student at Western is like. And I can\u2019t fault them for that \u2014 it\u2019s their job.<\/span><\/p>\n It is the responsibility of a PR team to make their employer attractive to the public and to handle any blemishes on that employer\u2019s image with grace. On the other hand, it is the responsibility of a reporter to inform the public of the truth about recent events.<\/span><\/p>\n The dichotomy between a news source and a PR department is a strong one, though it may be subtle at first glance.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m not trying to say that public relations is an immoral profession or that it shouldn\u2019t exist \u2014 simply that we should call a spade \u201ca spade.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Hey, Marketing and Communications \u2014 give it up. You\u2019re a spade, babe.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Contact the author at sblair13@wou.edu<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Stephanie Blair | Editor-in-Chief I know I may be a little biased on the issue as an aspiring journalist in the age of fake news and \u00a0\u201calternative facts\u201d but this is the opinion section, so hear me out. @WOUNews is not news \u2014 and no, that\u2019s not The Western Journal\u2019s handle on social media. Ever […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1017,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1017"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6397\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}