Letter to the Editor: Great effort lacking great production

November 7, 2006

To the Editor,

I don't claim to be an expert at anything. But, as I found my way to the Hard News Cafe homepage, I was interested to find that some of your articles are now being published in Spanish. Being a Spanish major, and former journalism major, I was very interested to see that in at least some little way, you were doing your part to recognize the ever growing importance of the Spanish language in our country.

Now, just one bit of advise. I'm not sure if you have anyone in your department that actually speaks Spanish, or if the students are doing their own editing, but I would just like to comment on the (pardon the strength of the word) atrociousness of the grammar in many of your Spanish language articles. When I was a student in the Journalism department, I constantly heard of the prestigious awards that the department, including the Hard News Cafe, was winning on a regular basis. Let's just hope that whomever the judges are this year, they don't speak Spanish. Please, find someone who can truly edit your Spanish language articles, or don't publish them. It reflects poorly on the strength and integrity of the department.

Sincerely,
Steven Oyler