I Take Fake Newspapers Seriously

When I first visited Grinnell, I was looking for ways to differentiate the College from other schools I had already been to. What was it about Grinnell that everyone said was so different and progressive?

For me, the answer was the school has a fake newspaper.

I visited Grinnell in the fall, and the issue for September had just come out. I was speechless. I couldn’t believe that a) a college as small as Grinnell had a newspaper devoted to things like the College president having a pretty cool Facebook profile, and b) once I got to campus, it was within the realm of possibility that I could write for this paper, this“B&S” (not to be confused with the somewhat more traditional and fact-based real campus newspaper, the S&B).

Now, three years later, I’m editor-in-chief and really starting to enjoy watching the effect the B&S has on unsuspecting readers. Recently, it was Family Weekend here on campus, and I couldn’t help but smile as I watched parents eagerly grab a copy of the campus newspaper before realizing there were two, and one of them was reporting on Grinnell becoming a “conservative arts college.” While we actually didn’t plan for our first issue to coincide with Family Weekend, it seemed to be a good move, if for no other reason than to let the maximum amount of people know such a paper exists and doesn’t care too much about journalistic integrity.

Except … not quite. Even for a newspaper where jokes, not leads or sources, are the primary indicators of promising articles, one can definitely learn a thing or two about what it takes to write effectively. My writing skills have undoubtedly improved since then, and that’s one of the great things about the B&S: anyone can say or write something that is funny to them, but to contribute something the majority of the staff finds acceptable is a much greater achievement. Each month, we run a finished product containing what many different people have helped determine to be the most important, groundbreaking, and hilarious bits of news you can hold in your hand.

Whether we do that every month is debatable, since coming up with consistent articles month after month about the same subjects — Grinnell, college, and Grinnell College — without repeating ourselves is certainly not easy. But it is extremely fun, and that’s no B&S.

Ross Preston '10 is an Economics majof from Ponta Vedra Beach, Florida.