Coverage You Can Count On

When Harvard’s notorious sex magazine “H Bomb” lost its student group status last month because of incomplete registration, the collective gasp was far quieter in the magazine’s death than it was in its birth. The images and the words from an activities fair of yesteryear are still fresh in my mind, when the main selling point for “H Bomb”—all two issues of it—was the chatter it generated beyond Harvard’s gates.

Here, however, the gossip can be described as slight, at best. It made initial waves, sure, but once the actual H bomb dropped, people forgot about the so-called controversy. Assistant Dean of the College Paul J. McLoughlin II told The Crimson last week: “Perhaps there is just more interest on the outside than on the inside.”

He’s exactly right. “H Bomb” was a big deal because the non-Harvard media made it so—the same way they do with everything Harvard-related. Did anyone bat an eye when BU launched its own sex-themed publication in late 2004? No—because it wasn’t Harvard. It’s a reality that comes with being under a magnifying glass many times bigger than our next closest rival. And it’s a reality that extends far beyond the scope of a failed sex magazine.

For example, do people honestly think that Harvard is unique in the fact that an abstinence movement exists on its campus? If so, it’s a naive thought: Despite what its name might suggest, “True Love”—or in reality, the abstinence claims inherent to the moniker—is by no a means revolution. Harvard surely doesn’t serve as the only catalyst behind a strong resurgent push for abstinence, yet one would think that was the case considering the wealth of attention True Love Revolution (TLR) has garnered.

The attention hasn’t come because these media-generators are dispelling any long-standing stereotypes, either. Were Harvard students sex-starved, with “H Bomb” as the result? Maybe we’re oversexed, and TLR is the logical next step. Or perhaps, we’re simply representative of most student bodies most places in most practical respects. It’s a novel idea that popular media could do well to entertain.

So far, though, they’ve done the opposite. Harvard is an undeserving force to be reckoned with when it comes to media coverage. This is most apparent in regards to news in the education world—we set the standard, even if we don’t really set any kind of standard.

Women occupy the offices of the presidency at countless universities around the country—half of the Ivy League universities have a women presidents, if you include Ppresident-elect Drew G. Faust—but upon Faust’s appointment, the announcement of Harvard’s first female president was somehow of a greater magnitude than those that had been made so many times before, so many years earlier, in so many other university press rooms.

When there’s real news to be covered—when, say, a prominent admissions dean down the road resigns in the face of staggering academic dishonesty—then that rightly gets coverage. But in times of comparative dormancy, no news equals Harvard news.

Part of the reason is surely because Harvard makes more news—our medical school releases more important studies, our students are often the ones launching news-worthy projects, and some of the world’s most prominent figures have Harvard-grown roots.

For example, when you peruse CNN.com’s Education home page, the prominently-featured links often send readers to a Harvard-angled story. This speaks to a widespread media notion that people desire any Harvard news as opposed to important Harvard news. Is our curricular review really that interesting to an outsider?

The problem is that we’re routinely covered for doing what has already been done, for being second-fiddle, for being mundane or rehashing. In short, Harvard is often rewarded with coverage without being unique. Reporters: if we do something truly revolutionary—like, say, fire our former Secretary of the Treasury embattled President in the long aftermath of questionable comments regarding gender and great faculty dissent—then by all means, cover Harvard.

But if Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who faces ill words and objections virtually everywhere he goes nowadays, encounters a few protesters at his 25-year Harvard Law School reunion (as happened this past weekend), then it shouldn’t be covered any more intensely than the protesters who demonstrate at any of the other numerous Gonzales appearances.

Everybody—students,professors and other faculty alike—came here with some notion of being a pioneer, part of a group of people who would rightly capture the media attention for our various endeavors. But the media should not reward us if those endeavors don’t truly turn out to be newsworthy. There’s a media assumption out there: That this is Harvard’s world, and everybody else is just living in it. In reality, I’m sure there’s more news out there. It’s time the media spread the attention-grabbing, blog-linking, and headline-making wealth.

Malcom A. Glenn ‘09 is a history concentrator in Leverett House. His column appears on alternate Tuesdays.