Did Crimson Go McCrazy?

You have no excuse not to read The Crimson. After all, how often do you get something for free?

First-week circulation glitches notwithstanding, The Crimson for the first time is in every room on campus. When I open my door to leave my room in the morning, the first thing I see is my copy of The Crimson. It's probably the first thing you see as well.

As a Crimson reader, I applaud the new free subscription policy for a very selfish reason: I no longer have to pay for The Crimson. As the Reader Representative, I think it's a great way to increase readership. A newspaper should be accessible to as many people as possible. People who would never have subscribed to The Crimson are now reading it merely because it is left outside their door. If they see something in the paper they like or don't like, or something that makes them angry, and it incites them to write a letter to the editors or call the Reader Representative, it will help The Crimson to improve its coverage of and sensitivity to its diverse readership.

So, now that you have your free newspaper, would you like fries with that? That's the question posed by the article which has elicited some of the most vocal and angry responses from readers during my tenure as Reader Representative. "Does Harvard Deserve a Break Today?" the headline asks-will a McDonald's ever open in Harvard Square?

Written in a lighthearted, fun style, the article examines the steps an enterprising student would have to take in order to open a McDonald's franchise, from attending Hamburger University (sorry, no transfer credits accepted) to facing the Cambridge City Council. Citing the statistics from last year's Loker Commons survey that 60 percent of respondents favored brand-name fast food there, the writers frame a battle between "hungry Harvardians" who have "resigned themselves to McDeprivation" and the Harvard Square Defense Fund-the mere mention of which "is enough to make a potential Square developer, landowner and McDonald's franchisee lose the Big Macs they ate for lunch."

Defenders of the so-called "character" of Harvard Square were quick to point out that not all students are in favor of having McDonald's in the Square. Several found The Crimson's coverage of the issue to be too opinionated: too pro-McDonald's and not respectful enough of alternative viewpoints. After rereading the article several times with the criticisms and letters to the editors in mind, I definitely see a distinct pro-McDonald's stance in the article. The authors are clearly sympathetic toward the students who crave McNuggets and they portray the Harvard Square Defense Fund as an obstacle to that end.

I must admit, however, that I interpreted the article very differently. "McHarvard," in my opinion, was one of the most amusing, insightful and thought-provoking articles I have read in The Crimson in a long time. While Harvard students are obviously not as homogeneous in their support of the Big Mac as the article suggests, I think that the tone of the article was crucial to its impact and readability.

One of the few problems I did have with the article, after hearing readers' complaints, was the headline "Desperately Seeking McDonald's: Students fight to bring fast food to Harvard Square" (news, page 4). Where the main article, written in the City and Region section, seemed more a feature story and was headlined as such, this headline seems to indicate that there has been a student outcry in favor of a McDonald's in Harvard Square, which is not the case. In addition, the sidebar to the piece, "Caution: Square Contents are Hot," should have been a place where the concerns of both the Harvard Square Defense Fund and McDonald's were analyzed more thoroughly and in a more unbiased format. The sidebar is a bit more balanced, but falls short in sampling the variety of student and community opinion on the topic. Calling page five of the newspaper "The McHarvard Crimson" is obviously meant to be amusing, and I took it as such.

I think that the lack of a McDonald's in Harvard Square is an issue that one must think about in order to truly understand the city of Cambridge and the historical culture of Harvard Square. One of my criticisms of The Crimson last year was its lack of perceptive coverage of regional news. This article, and the article on parking in Wednesday's paper, showed that The Crimson can cover regional issues which affect Harvard better than any local news outlet.

The McHarvard article, in large part because of the creative approach taken by the writers, really got to the heart of the issues facing the future of Harvard Square. A news article analyzing the history of the Harvard Square Defense Fund and its attitude toward fast food and development in the Square, I am sure, would have been neither as interesting nor as thought-provoking, and would not have elicited letters to the editors, comments or discussions.

In my opinion, the writers approached their story creatively and showed a spirit of innovation that has been sorely lacking in The Crimson of late. If The Crimson is truly to be the paper of record for the Harvard community, it must not shy away from controversy.

If you feel that The Crimson does not speak for you, don't stop reading it! Discussion about how The Crimson should cover the Cambridge community, or anything else, can only help The Crimson to be more responsive to the concerns of its readers. Write a letter to the editors. Call the Reader Representative. The Crimson-and the Harvard community-will be better off for it.

Noelle Eckley, who is not a Crimson editor, is The Crimson's Reader Representative. She can be reached through e-mail at eckley@fas.harvard.edu.