Note: This is an opinion piece written by the guy who created the Reaper page in 2012. This is his perspective of his time running the page.
The year was 2012. Concordia students had a 2g data limit on their internet usage per week and the Husker football team was still considered decent. Back then, the Sower was only a printed paper. This was concerning for journalism students who wanted to get more experience on what it was like to actually write for a newspaper.
There was harsh resistance from the school on
trying to bring the Sower into the 21st century. This culminated in a meeting
between the faculty Sower advisor and several of the student journalists of the
Sower. I was in that meeting. At the end of the conversation the faculty Sower
advisor said, “the Sower needs to be run like a business.”
That was the day I quit the Sower.
I found the statement absolutely ridiculous – the Sower was first and foremost a student organization that was supposed to provide an experience to students who were interested in journalism. And besides that, if it was really a business it would have done what the rest of the newspapers around the country (and even within the GPAC) had done by that point and started an online platform.
I left that meeting knowing that it was time
to try something different. After consulting the sacred-chicken bones and some
tarot cards I stumbled across the lost ancient history of the Reaper. This was
an independent student news source that began far before my time and was left
dormant for years.
A group of like-minded students, and myself,
resurrected the Reaper and began publishing stories (both real and satirical)
online for the first time ever in Concordia’s history. Our most popular story
was probably a ranking of the best party-houses in Seward, the most
controversial was a Q&A article that upset the mother of the student who
was profiled.
We published our stories under pseudonyms, and for good reason. Eventually I was called into several offices to explain ourselves and to shoot down requests that we stop running such controversial stories. It was a glorious time to be involved in something Concordia had thought was long forgotten.
As the years went by eventually these renegade
students graduated and the Reaper went back into hibernation. In 2019, a next
generation of students reached out to me and asked if they could bring it back
but with this time just a focus on satirical stories. We happily facilitated
that request.
I thought it was necessary to write down this
history after reading Paige Uzzell’s recent editorial, The Reaper, Good or
Bad?. It was a great opinion piece but omitted several key details
which I wrote above. I applaud this current generation of both the Sower and
the Reaper student journalists who can now live in harmony.
In conclusion, I will answer the question
whether the Reaper good or bad: It is definitively bad. 😈
-Patrice Lumumba
Bonus quote on importance of satire:
Satire is one of the
most powerful weapons of speech in a free society. It stirs the collective
consciousness against oppressive governments and laws, rulers, the rich and
powerful (look at Voltaire and the rich tradition of political cartoons in the
modern world, all the way to the biting social commentary of freedom of speech
warriors like Lenny Bruce and George Carlin), and moreover points a mirror at
we ourselves as individuals: exposing the hypocrisies and frailties of our
individual positions on issues — hopefully getting us to see where others are
coming from in how they view the world. Thus, satire also takes tremendous
steps to opening up dialogue on the issues where it had otherwise been stifled
— penetrating that wall through a universal language of humor: if we are only
willing to give a little introspection and laugh at ourselves.
WESS HAUBRICH, “In defense of Truly Free Speech: ‘South
Park’ at 21”, The 405, September
17, 2017
CUNE Reaper 