An Editorial to the Nightly:

“Hi! As to establish a sense of moral superiority over you all (as is of course necessary in any leftist discourse), I first present typos I noticed:

(double space in the article "Development as a Tool of Oppression")

(missing period in the article "An Interview With The Nightly")

I jest.

I think The Nightly, as a project, is fantastic. I was really happy to walk onto UW campus for the first time and stumble on a sticker saying the UW had a student-run socialist publication. I quickly read through its back catalogue—I believe, so far, I’ve read all the articles. I think it's really brave to set up a publication like this, and you've managed to keep it alive and keep evolving. I am especially looking forward to more installments of the book review series. You've convinced me to put Are Prisons Obsolete? onto my reading backlog after I'd previously stopped midway through it. I also think it's really cool how other progressive orgs can take this space and use it to promote their events and ideas. It's really cool to have a publication where you can give a more detailed explanation about your group and its ideals without having to drag people into attending a meeting or a teach-in, or following you on social media.

My chief complaint with the site is the lack of an About page. The “An Interview With The Nightly” article mentions why the site was founded: Dissatisfaction with electoral politics; desire to dismantle hierarchies in the family, school, and workplace; desire to shape the land around us without the state putting up barriers; desire to have a long-lasting media apparatus that can survive the constant turnover of the student body; distaste towards The Daily and how it's funded by UW. But there's not much reasoning provided: there's little on what power an alternative media outlet could have to fix these issues and little on why specifically The Daily fails in its reporting (When I talked to them during the open house, they denied UW Admin exercising any editorial control over the publication). I think the average viewer should be presented with a strong, well-sourced argument as to why The Daily isn't enough, and they shouldn't have to dig to find it: an About page is the best tool to accomplish that.

(also: the "An Interview With The Nightly" article mentions op-eds that The Daily rejected for being too left-wing. I think you should publish those, and say "these were op-eds that The Daily rejected!")

I also think an About page would help clarify the overall political intentions of the outlet. “Socialist” is a broad word meaning anything from Anarcho-Syndicalism to the implementation of UBI & single-payer healthcare. As an aspiring Marxist-Leninist*, I was rather surprised** and kind of disappointed that every other article seemed to take “praxis is when you firebomb a Walmart”-esque ideas for granted; I’m left unsure as to whether The Nightly Crew is meant to represent just those authors’ opinions or if it’s the political message the site is pushing forward overall. And it's okay if that's the message the site is putting forward overall! I just think it should be made clearer.

*I have read maybe a combined 80 pages of Marx and Lenin.

**It took me a while to notice that “UW’s Socialist newspaper” is sometimes expanded to “UW’s Socialist & Anarchist newspaper”… It doesn’t show up on firefox mobile unless you enable reader mode

This clarity could also be applied to analysis of the university. Right now, The Nightly mostly only appeals to people who already agree that the university is a reactionary force. I think in the About section, The Nightly could present a strong argument to convince the layperson of that fact, too.

My more out-there suggestion would be to have a calendar page for upcoming events. I think that The Nightly is in a unique position as (I assume) a big-tent left-wing publication to alert readers to events of varying sorts for varying causes. This could also include meeting times for different clubs, or just fun things being hosted by said clubs... I understand that this would be a ton of effort to set up and stay informed on, but it would be really cool if it panned out.

Anyway, thank you all for making this. Bye!”

Our Response:

This email is the reason we now have a calendar page. I asked the sender a while back if we could publish it, and they said sure, but then the plan to do that fell out of my ear while I was sleeping, which meant it was erased from the to-do list in my head. Luckily, Google Docs remembered. So here’s the letter to the editor, and here’s our response.

• We accept your moral superiority and will worship you as supreme moral overlord should you ever hanker to bear the title.

• An About page is a good idea which we have been working on since you sent the email. Anonymous Artichoke is working on a lovely piece about where we think the Daily can go stick itself and why, but just to offer you a couple of reasons off the top of my head:

  • UW admin may not technically exercise any editorial control, but whenever a media outlet depends on an institution for funding, its publications are going to reflect the interests of that institution. Congratulations, you just speedran COM 200. Also, they’re not a political paper. Most of the stuff they post is sports and pop culture, and for every left-leaning op-ed they publish, there are two more from finance bros who think praxis is something you have to carry an Epipen for.

  • Speaking of money, the Daily has a seriously questionable payment system. Writers get paid by the article, which not only encourages them to churn out hoards of shitty pieces with zero significance or craftsmanship, but it means they don’t even get paid a steady minimum wage. This kind of exploitation keeps the Daily’s page so chock-full of fluff pieces that I doubt half the articles even get read. The Nightly, on the other hand, was born and raised on a $0 budget. All the pieces on our site are products not of a monetary incentive, but of us doing what we love: dicking around.

• We’re anarcho-socialists, but since your email, we realized the term anarchist would probably give people a better idea of what we’re about. We are now called UW’s Anarchist Newspaper

• If you’re into 19th-century political theorists, I’d recommend reading some Kropotkin. I hate that bitch Marx, mostly because Marxists* are the only fandom more dogmatic and less open to critique than Swifties. But what I’d really recommend is moving away from the 19th century. I mean, that stuff can be useful to know, but only as a foundation for understanding today’s updated ideas, modified from the original frameworks as times changed. Maybe you were planning on going that route already, I don’t know. I just had to get that out there because it makes zero sense that so many people still take Marx and Lenin and Mao and whoever at face value when they were living in a completely different world. Then again, that’s just my opinion and you can do whatever you want. 

  • *”Not all Marxists!” I make sure to clarify as I’m beaten to death by Marxists.

• I don’t think any of us would be opposed to firebombing a Walmart. (Only if firebombing a Walmart was legalized, of course.)

• The problem with trying to convince people UW is a reactionary force is if they don’t already have some kind of leftist sympathies, they probably wouldn’t be checking out UW’s Anarchist Newspaper. That said, I think if people do take the time to look through our page, the articles there provide a pretty good body of evidence. And I do think it would be fun to pitch The Nightly at a right-wing club meeting.

• We now have a calendar page. 

I think I speak for all of us when I say these were really helpful suggestions. Also, we were flattered that somebody took the time to send us such a thorough email. We were reading it on the floor with our chins in our hands, kicking our feet and giggling, and then we all skipped off with arms linked to get your email address tattooed over our hearts. It was an ego boost rivaling the time The Daily sent us a very strongly-worded email. Which we still aren’t acknowledging happened, in case they send us another one.

XOXOXO,

The Nightly Crew

Published: 26-2-24