Have you read the newest newsletter in town? The Son Papers recently hit the streets of Gainesville with a bang.
The weekly newsletter aims to “share the truth of God’s son, Jesus Christ” with our community. It will apparently stop at nothing until we acknowledge its existence. If you haven’t seen them, then we’re a little surprised, because they keep trying to shove themselves down our throats. For many weeks, the assistant director contacted the opinions editor of the Alligator with mailed letters.
He started sending them, however, during the winter break between last semester and this semester, so no one read his correspondence until we got back into the office.
Since then, we’ve received many more letters. He invited us to submit weekly pieces on the preordained topics. The only way to say “no thanks” was to call, text or reply by letter. He didn’t do email at the time.
“Anyway, we’re going to continue to share our version of the truth,” wrote the only representative of the Son Papers who contacted us. “We’ll continue to run the ‘World Series of Truth’ and you guys will lose each issue by forfeit.”
Pardon our French, but how the hell is that fair? Or normal?
Let’s create a hypothetical situation. It’s a few months before your wedding day, so it’s time to send out invitations. Invitations include an RSVP card. This helps you keep track of who will actually attend your event, by the way.
You give your guests an appropriate deadline to respond. By that date, you’re led to assume that only those who have replied to say they will be at your wedding will physically be there. Anyone who did not reply will either not be there or will not have a name card, so they might as well not even show up.
We didn’t agree to the “challenge” from the Sons Papers.
We never replied. We already have our own section of a newspaper dedicated to stating our opinions; you’re reading it right now. When we didn’t respond after some time, the newsletter started to print results of its “poll,” which asks readers to contact the newsletter with their choice of who wrote their “favorite version of the truth.”
In a letter from earlier this month, we were reassured that “only those who have seen the introductory issue will know what’s going on, and that’s not a lot of people.”
Whoever your readers are, dude, they’re smart. They haven’t voted for your opponent. Because your opponent is the Alligator, a newspaper that doesn’t have time to also write your newsletter for you. While we’re at it, you can stop using our racks to promote your newsletter. We’ve had too many issues with those racks to just let someone else share the ones we have left.
Stop physically attaching copies on or near our office.
“When I was in the Marine Corps, they taught us in radio communications that silence meant consent,” wrote the assistant director in this week’s letter.
Silence doesn’t mean “yes” in everyone else’s book, bro.
Consider this our formal “no thank you” to your challenge.
Best of luck in your future endeavors.
