Established 1826 — Oldest College Newspaper West of the Alleghenies

We want more than sports: a gentle reminder to change the channel in ASC

The following piece, written by the editorial editors, reflects the majority opinion of the editorial board.

Hey, has anyone seen the remote to the biggest television on campus? You know, the giant wall-sized one in Armstrong. The remote must be lost, because it feels like the TV has perpetually been stuck on ESPN all semester. As the Editorial Board, we've been worried about this, so we put our college-educated heads together and looked around.

We thought it might be hidden in a basement storage closet collecting dust. Or at the bottom of a freshman's backpack. We had hopes it was nestled between the couch cushions in Shade family room, but that was a no. The batteries might just be dead, we thought. We kept looking.

We were ready to issue a campus-wide search comittee, but instead we decided to check our facts. We did some digging and emailed the director of Armstrong asking for answers. In these journalistic pursuits, we discovered that the remote isn't lost. It never was. And after all of that, the response we received was rather anticlimatic. They just kinda forgot about changing the channel for a whole semester.

Roughly twelve hours after sending that previously mentioned email, we opened the doors to Armstrong and saw CNN playing on the TV. With that kind of turnaround, it clearly wasn't too hard of a change.

But for the past few months, all we've seen are football games, anchors talking about football and all the other athletic-related things you show on sports channels.

When this TV is simply forgotten about, it's a missed opportunity.

Here at The Miami Student, we don't accept the "we forgot" excuse. We're annoyed that the TV was only showing sports day after day and we are politely asking whoever has that job to actually do their job, for real this time.

When we're standing in line to order our stir-fry or taking a moment to sit down and eat a meal in the dining area, we would like some variety. At this point, anything but sports would be preferable.

This may sound like a small, trivial detail to be concerned about in the grand scheme of our campus and our hectic days. But this television holds a lot of power between its large screen, hoisted up in the dining area of our student center. This giant screen is in the most centralized location in the most centralized building on campus -which means if you go to Miami, you will probably encounter it at some point. And you will probably, on some level, absorb a slice of what is playing on the screen. Shouldn't something that is seen by thousands of people on a daily basis be higher on someone's list of priorities?

The Armstrong Student Center Board, which is comprised of students who are apparently accustomed to having remote privileges, made a formal recommendation last spring for what should be shown on the TV - because what's shown on the TV is actually a big deal. The board laid out a rotating schedule of news, sports, talk shows and even a block of time in the evening where students in the building could decide what to watch.

There was a clear plan involving a variety of channels and subject matters. So, why is it always on ESPN? That hardly reflects the board's recommendation and it doesn't reflect the preference of the majority of people on this campus.

We know they have a plan that includes channels other than sports, so why are we not seeing that plan? Why was that plan just tossed away?

If students want to know the score of a football game or watch the highlights, they will seek it out on their own. You can easily look up a game on your phone.

But, the majority of Miami students won't go of their way to seek out news. Students probably won't spend their precious free time checking The New York Times website or chatting with a friend about world events. A lot of students probably won't have local news on in the background while studying. Going to Armstrong could be the only time some students have to catch a glimpse of the news, but oh wait, there's old golf highlights on instead.

Shouldn't an educational envrionment make a conscious decision to inform in every possible way, with every possible screen?

With things like the readership program on campus, we know it's important to Miami administrators that we're informed.

This is a quick and easy way to keep that mission alive. Using this TV in a meaningful way and taking it seriously is a convenient method of providing our student body with what's going on in the world and outside of Oxford.

This television may seem like just another screen you pass by during your busy morning, but it has the ability to serve a bigger purpose, one that's bigger than the TV's surface area. It's in a spot to have an impact - all you have to do is change the channel.