Editor's Note 1/18

Story by Jacob Zlomke 

| Published Jan 18, 2011

This weekend the Beta Theta Pi fraternity, of which I’m an esteemed member, initiated its new members. So did a few other fraternities and sororities around campus. To the average DailyER reader, this probably doesn’t mean much. The Greek system is a much resented but ever-present part of UNL culture that’s stereotypically full of thumb-their-nose-at-you rich kids in Sperry shoes.

Based on the beer-chugging cliches, I don’t blame anyone for the disdain. But I’ve sort of come to the defense of the Greek system here before and now I find myself doing it again.

See, there’s this new-ish paper on campus that you may or may not know about, it’s called the Odyssey and it’s a paper for the Greek system run by members of the Greek system. I wouldn’t really call it a newspaper. Maybe a social zine would be a more appropriate moniker. It’s been around for a semester, and it’s honestly probably far more well-read than this publication because people love to read about themselves and that’s what the Odyssey writes about: their audience.

But what it is doesn’t really matter, it just matters that it exists.

In an ideal world, this campus would be saturated with publications. Give my staff some competition. Believe it or not, between the DailyER and the Daily, we haven’t filled every niche.

And that’s where the Odyssey comes in. I’m going to take a guess and say that frat boys aren’t our largest demographic and neither are they the Daily Nebraskan’s. So the Odyssey fills that gap in readership. Now even the frattiest can identify with a publication.

That makes me wonder what other readership gaps could be filled? And what about the overlap potential? There are certainly people that read the DailyER, the Daily, and the Odyssey.

There’s room for a politically-centered publication and probably dozens more ideas that could easily turn into a weekly or bi-weekly publication. And more publications means more information and more takes on any individual issue. I want all sides to every story, especially the satirical side.

You should want it too. There’s no reason we can’t have that.

So, once again, I urge my more cavalier readers to take a page from the Greek system.

Go start a publication. I want to read it.