Why read the CxPJ? A Historical Affirmation

As mentioned in several of our articles and editorial statements, the Counter Point is partly a direct challenge to the Cooper Point Journal’s lack of reporting on Evergreens administration in a responsible way.
However, it turns out the Counter Point Collective was not the first group of students that has noticed a resonance between the Cooper Point Journal and our ever diligent administrators. A trip to the archives turns up three alternative student papers, The Crapper Point Journal, The Evergreen Free Press, and The Paper, that were sparked, at least partly in response to the CPJ.

The most sustained effort, The Evergreen Free Press ran from 1988 to 1994. In the third issue, one of the collective members, under the byline “Goodman,” published a narrative about why they started an alternative paper, which reads surprisingly like ours.

It seems the editor in chief of the CPJ in 1988 was “being accused of general incompetence as an editor and not printing political views he didn’t agree with.” The other staff member of the CPJ and some Evergreen community members attempted to get him fired, but alas the Communications Board ruled that there were not sufficient grounds to remove him from office.

The papers advisor at the time, Susan Finkel, was described as “conservative by mainstream journalism standards.” She was apparently in cahoots with the Communications Board and angled for more power by suggesting that she be in charge of the hiring and firing of the editor who made all executive decisions about the CPJ.

In a stunning familiar episode, students who asked for change in the CPJ were told by Finkel to “start their own paper.” So they did. After producing their first issue, they asked the S&A board for funding, and they did get the money—mainly, Goodman asserts, because Finkel lobbied for them, so they would cause no more ruckus in the CPJ office.

The Evergreen Free Press thrived for years and ran articles on suspect issues such as the Board of Trustees, the failure of Disappearing Task Forces at Evergreen, budget cut, and police accountability. Or as some could argue, everything the CPJ deemed too controversial. They were supported by a wide array of students and groups, including MEChA, the Wilderness Center, and KAOS.

A brief look through the years reveal several complaints from people who the CPJ refused to publish. One student wrote a letter to the Free Press stating that he had published cartoons for the CPJ for several month, which had been “subject to a series of insults by the CPJ administration.” The Editor in Chief finally refused to print his work because he “talked about things that people don’t like to talk about… and there are reasons why people don’t like to talk about them.”

Perhaps the topics discussed in the Free Press and the Counter Pont make some people uncomfortable, but the thought behind both these papers is to ferment discomfort and agitate debates which give potential for positive change on campus.