To the Editor, I write to question The Phillipian’s priorities. While I reject Mr. Aronov’s suggestion last week that The Phillipian’s upper management withholds truth from the community – as a recent alumnus of that noted corrupting cabal, I can affirm the editor’s statement that the paper strives for professional standards of accuracy – but I do sometimes wonder why exactly they print what they print. Though I neither knew Headmaster Sizer nor attended Andover during his tenure, I felt sadness upon hearing of his passing. It isn’t only that we attended the same primary school – Foote School classes of 1945 and 2006 – but that, as I’ve learned from reading old Phillipians and the outpouring of alumni memories on Andover’s website, he played such an important role in the development of this school and American educational thought. I don’t consider myself the best person to speak on that topic, though, so I won’t. Here’s what I can tell you: The Phillipian devoted 832 words to covering Sizer’s death, in a single-column front page story. The New York Times’ website carried an 1,188-word obituary on its landing page. It’s embarrassing, getting out-hustled on a story in your own backyard. But here’s what’s worse – the editors let it happen, in deciding to blanket last week’s paper with coverage of a movie shoot. A front-page story – logically 1,332 words, nearly twice as long as the Sizer story –graced the paper, alongside an editorial and two garish, photo-heavy pages indistinguishable from advertisements for the film. You’d think, with all the hullaballoo, that Hollywood had colonized Flagstaff Quad and would be hiring Andover students to star in future features. At least then there’d be actual glitz and glamour to clamor about. Instead, it was just a 30-second scene. 1/160th of a movie that represents about 1/600th of Hollywood’s yearly output. A couple hours in the school’s 231 years. A scene that did not – as the Arts section callously put it – make us “famous.” Yet The Phillipian put three reporters and three photographers, not to mention its editorial board, on the case. If anyone covered in last week’s paper helped make this school “famous,” or, rather, the incredible school it is today, it was Ted Sizer. But, of course, you wouldn’t know that by reading The Phillipian, where reporting like People trumps actual people. -Jack Dickey ’09
