A group calling themselves UMBC Students 4 Fair Media Coverage sent in the following article.  I’ve inserted links to the pertinent Retriever issues mentioned in the article, but it is otherwise as we received it.

So apparently, some people were never taught ‘if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all’. It has come to our attention, we vigorous news hounds, that our beloved student-run school newspaper has been using a student organization, unceremoniously, as a punching bag. I don’t think I have to specify which one.

The increasingly nasty articles and editorials clearly express a bias that is disconcerting. The Retriever Weekly claims as unbiased reporting as possible. Why hasn’t there been an article about the positive aspects of this organization? Or even a real story about them? Instead the intelligence of the UMBC student body is continuously insulted by false reports of injuries (03-31-10 [editor's note: there was no 3-31 edition, but there was on 3-30-10]) and wild accusations of interference with the daily lives of students (04-06-10). Many of the more astute readers may realize that many of the articles referred to were featured in the “deceiver weekly” edition of the paper, but that just reiterates the point; that a sanctioned student organization should not be made into the weekly paper’s own little whipping boy.

As a staff member of the Retriever Weekly, I can tell you that this constant bad press is, unfortunately, not wholly unintentional. A fellow staff member requested to write a real account of the Club’s hosted games on our campus, and she was, unceremoniously shut down.

That this, and only this organization was selected to be used as the excuse for all of campus’s ills is disturbing. Does UMBC not advocate a community of tolerance? Where do these editorial writers get off? If it’s not accusations of childish behavior, for having fun, at players, it’s wildly inaccurately accusing players of attacking innocent bystanders! I’m sure players of this activity would love to remove all human error from their game, but it’s just not possible. Does Ms. Hunter, author of the latest slanderous and insulting comments wish that all UMBC students make themselves into robots? Didn’t think so. Her accusation that “too many unsuspecting victims get caught in the crossfire” is way off. I’ve never been hit by a stray dart, neither has anyone I have asked about this. And no one those people ever heard of were ever hit.

As a student at UMBC, I find this constant disregard for the standards that legitimate media outlets use to report news fairly to be disgusting. It does not matter who is being targeted on our campus, as long as someone or some group is, students cannot stand for such injustice.

We of S4FM will no longer meet quietly. This is merely the latest in a long line of extremely biased reporting and poor coverage of actual campus news. As a result of the ever-decreasing quality of writing, and coverage, and due to the outrageous amounts of anti-organization bias, We of S4FM are speaking out.