San Diego State University’s Independent Student Newspaper Since 1913

The Daily Aztec

San Diego State University’s Independent Student Newspaper Since 1913

The Daily Aztec




San Diego State University’s Independent Student Newspaper Since 1913

The Daily Aztec

Letter: A.S. election coverage had problems

I am not comfortable with how the 2017 A.S. election was covered by The Daily Aztec.

In the article “Students talk presidential candidates,” a source is quoted as saying he was “bothered when (Ben) Delbick said SDSU was a binational campus” and that “when you call a campus binational, that means that there are two, so I mean seeing his fraternity as one race, I imagine it as one race versus the other.”

Anyone who had actually paid attention would have known that when Delbick called our campus binational, he followed it with “there are students who live across the border and come here to study.”

Get it?

Two nations — the U.S. and Mexico — not his fraternity and everyone else on campus.

A senior staff writer at The Daily Aztec said on Twitter that the quote was the student’s opinion, not the newspaper’s. However, that student was either incredibly misinformed or wasn’t paying attention. The DA should confirm its sources are reliable and informed in order to avoid embarrassing itself further.

The editorial published by The Daily Aztec’s editorial board announcing candidate endorsements was also problematic. This is not an attack on the endorsed candidate. Her qualifications and ideas are excellent reasons to endorse her. However, the Editorial Board saying the opposing candidates “consistently avoided taking firm positions on controversial matters” was uncalled for.

Unlike the editorial board, I watched the debate between the A.S. presidential candidates — that it moderated — and noticed a glaring contradiction.

At the time, the candidate it eventually endorsed did not have a clearly stated opinion on a key campus issue — Boycott, Divest and Sanction. Since the editorial was published, she has clarified her position on BDS via Facebook, but at the debate, which the candidate endorsement is presumably based on, she was the only one out of her competitors to not firmly condemn anti-Semitism and BDS, contradicting The Daily Aztec.

The Daily Aztec should pay closer attention to its own debate and not use libelous quotes out of context. That way it can avoid trying to sway the campus vote in a poorly written editorial.

Adele Vaughan

Adele Vaughan is a second-year foods and nutrition major.

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San Diego State University’s Independent Student Newspaper Since 1913
Letter: A.S. election coverage had problems