There has been a lot of controversy surrounding the cover of the Spring Break Issue of the Jibsheet that was published on March 15, 2011. We were unable to address it at the close of Winter Quarter because our Spring Break issue is the last issue of Winter Quarter. The first Jibsheet of Spring Quarter was The Bullsheet, our traditional April Fool’s day issue. We didn’t want anyone thinking that we were making fun of or making light of the situation by addressing the controversy in that satirical issue. Our publication schedule is planned out over a year in advance; our dates are fixed and special issues cannot be changed.
We created the Spring Break cover as a collaboration of the majority of the staff and it was also approved by four section editors and myself, all of us being women. We realized that the image we chose was provocative, but we felt that is was suitable for a college-aged audience and illustrated the effects of being part of the late MTV Spring Break, Girls Gone Wild generation. We considered it a social commentary that would illustrate the idea that spring break has become synonymous with women flashing.
Our mission at the Jibsheet is to be the student voice of Bellevue College and we try our best to get the opinions and ideas of as many students as possible. We do this through the last section of the paper, Talking Heads, and interviews as well as encouraging any student on campus to write or work for the paper. We always support students to speak out through letters to the editor or opinions: we publish everything that is sent to us, even if it is critical of the paper.
We urge anyone who has an opinion, either for or against or in response to the cover, to speak through written words and email comments and letters to mail@thejibsheet.com with “letter to the editor” in the subject line.
Also, our doors are always open to anyone who directly wants to speak to any of the staff members or myself, in room C206. Currently we are working to organize on an open forum to directly address and speak about this particular issue. We are extending an open invitation to the campus to attend and share your opinions. More details will be published as soon as a date has been selected.
Sincerely,
Riley Hartwell
Editor-in-Chief
The Jibsheet