Sleazy Mendoza Strikes Again!

[hoyatables]

Aww, people can up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. Forty percent of all people know that. - H. Simpson

The conclusions are unfair.

1) Four of the seven arrests were from the same incident. no surprise that athletes hang out with their own kind like other student groups. if someone had started a fight at my house and (hypothetically) all four of my housemates had gotten involved, when the police were done laughing, they would have arrested four band kids. that doesn't prove that band kids are violent.

2) And the article ignores Georgetown students that have been arrested for "victimless" crimes, such as drug use. It observes that the data it relied on contains info from those reports, but then quite cleverly states "The search of all criminal suspects identified seven Georgetown-affiliated suspects charged with crimes of violence." - in other words, it failed to look at data on these other crimes.

3) And it fails to mention ONE rape, which is the most damning omission. I find it impossible to believe that a university with 6,000 undergrads did not have ONE rape. Perhaps they are reported to another agency, and I am sure many are either handled on campus or are otherwise underreported.

4) This doesn't account for every stupid fight broken up by DOPS or that otherwise was handled before the police were involved. Anyone else think its more likely than not that athletes would do more damage than your normal kid, perhaps leading to a greater chance that charges would be pressed?

If this is an attempt ot demonstrate what an "independent" paper could report, give me a campus-affiliated paper any day.

I hate irresponsible writing, particularly when it fails to present a balanced report.

[LizziebethHoya]

Well, it was The Hoyas first attempt at investigative reporting (read: a google search).

Poorly written, poorly researched, the argument wasn't logically thought out....badbadbad

[Filo]

This is a shameful and downright embarrassing article. Bad enough that the Hoya is trying to get a 'scoop' on a hot topic through the use of shoddy investigating and ill-founded conclusions. But to do so at the expense of fellow students and the school's athletic program is pathetic.

[Joe Hoya]

nyhoya08 said:

Poorly written, poorly researched, the argument wasn't logically thought out....badbadbad

Does any of this really surprise you?

One of the things I'll miss in a few weeks is my ritual of going to the cafeteria for lunch before class, picking up a copy of The Hoya, perusing it during the meal, and happily chucking it in the trash/recycle basket when I put my tray back. Discarding The Hoya is one of those small little pleasures in life.

[SFHoya99]

"The search of all criminal suspects identified seven Georgetown-affiliated suspects charged with crimes of violence, which includes the five athletes."

Wow. Over a year, a stunning sample size of SEVEN.

[CAHoya07]

joehoya said:

nyhoya08 said:

Poorly written, poorly researched, the argument wasn't logically thought out....badbadbad

Does any of this really surprise you?

One of the things I'll miss in a few weeks is my ritual of going to the cafeteria for lunch before class, picking up a copy of The Hoya, perusing it during the meal, and happily chucking it in the trash/recycle basket when I put my tray back. Discarding The Hoya is one of those small little pleasures in life.

All right, I'll admit, this is a bad article, but I'm tired of people taking shots at The Hoya. There will be some poor articles from time to time, but overall I think the paper serves its purpose to the community of letting you know what's going on in a professional manner. The Hoya is the only campus paper here I'll read or at least browse on a fairly consistent basis, and it is light years ahead of The Voice and The Independent.

I think one of the problems is that Georgetown doesn't have a real journalism program, so as a result the writing can suffer. But overall, the paper does a good job serving the community, and there are almost always some interesting and pertinent articles to read in there.

And this has nothing to do with the fact that I sporadically write for the Guide, the Hoya's entertainment section.

(EDIT: Haha, good observation, SFHoya)

[TBird41]

Right, b/c implying that all of our athletes are out of control b/c of 7 people in a front page article is professional. It's pretty irresponsible if you ask me. This is a non story, that is now being sensationalized into front page news.

[CAHoya07]

tbird41 said:

Right, b/c implying that all of our athletes are out of control b/c of 7 people in a front page article is professional. It's pretty irresponsible if you ask me. This is a non story, that is now being sensationalized into front page news.

Agreed. This is one of the worst reasoned and poorly thought out articles that I've ever read in The Hoya. I hope he gets a lot of response mail criticizing him for it. I'm even thinking of writing something myself.

I'm just defending the paper as a whole.

[Joe Hoya]

cahoya07 said:

joehoya said:

Does any of this really surprise you?

One of the things I'll miss in a few weeks is my ritual of going to the cafeteria for lunch before class, picking up a copy of The Hoya, perusing it during the meal, and happily chucking it in the trash/recycle basket when I put my tray back. Discarding The Hoya is one of those small little pleasures in life.

All right, I'll admit, this is a bad article, but I'm tired of people taking shots at The Hoya. There will be some poor articles from time to time, but overall I think the paper serves its purpose to the community of letting you know what's going on in a professional manner. The Hoya is the only campus paper here I'll read or at least browse on a fairly consistent basis, and it is light years ahead of The Voice and The Independent.

I think one of the problems is that Georgetown doesn't have a real journalism program, so as a result the writing can suffer. But overall, the paper does a good job serving the community, and there are almost always some interesting and pertinent articles to read in there.

And this has nothing to do with the fact that I sporadically write for the Guide, the Hoya's entertainment section.

(EDIT: Haha, good observation, SFHoya)

Don't worry man, I'm not knocking you or your work...mostly because I don't get to The Guide.

Sorry if I came off too harsh...just a constant disappointment over the course of my time here. You don't need a journalism program to use proper English and to write readable stories/columns.

[CAHoya07]

Haha, no prob Joe, I guess the Guide ain't for everyone. Your criticisms are valid, but I just felt the need to defend the Hoya because I feel they get a little too much heat here on the boards.