The Daily Spectator?!

It’s only been a few issues and The Spectator is already facing massive internal conflicts after their switch to a daily publication. I can already see some of you whining in the imaginary comments: “But shouldn’t the masterminds behind the paper, who have their own deadlines and everything, be able to fit the same schedule in under a day?” Unfortunately, this is not the case with Spec kids.

It all began when Principal Yu sent an inconspicuous e-mail early Monday morning to seniors and Editors-in-Chief Maya Nelson and Momoca Mairaj, in which he hinted that a cult dedicated to him was forming in the Humor department, among other things (pertaining to us). He included the following note at the end: “Times are changing, and I’m getting too old to wait two weeks to read a newspaper. Therefore, starting today, The Spectator will have to publish daily to simulate a real one like The New York Times.”

Nelson immediately complained that this order infringed on their charter, but Yu responded by leaving her on voicemail and disappearing for the rest of the day. When our reporters finally found him and demanded answers for the sudden change, he was sitting in his office, shoes propped up on the table. “They’re Stuy students, so surely this should be easy for them,” he replied, waving his hand coolly. “Tell them that if they don’t, I will reveal their secret plans to write another blasphemous article on me in the next SING! (or was it SEUNG!?) issue.”

Meanwhile, pandemonium had broken out in room 615E, home to the top-secret Spec class, as the other editors heard of the news. “Some of them were crying hysterically, using ripped-up newspaper sheets as tissues, while others were channeling their rage through furious scribbles on the whiteboard. Thankfully, I got out of there unscathed,” freshman Gary McGibson, who had errantly ventured into the room out of sheer boredom, said.

After witnessing their mental breakdowns, faculty advisor Kerry Garfinkel came to the rescue, suggesting that they could have more students help out with the paper. He held an emergency meeting with the English Department to discuss ways to increase student involvement. After an awkward moment of silence in which teachers stared blankly at each other, Freshman Composition teacher Lisa Fleevers quipped, “Since we can’t threaten students physically if they don’t contribute, we should threaten them with a 10-point reduction to their English grades instead!”

And so the race began. So many students rushed to sign up through Google Forms that the Web department’s backup server 2.069 exploded from the amount of traffic. But with so many ready to contribute and not enough communication from the editors, things were bound to get out of hand. In one instance, a student admitted to filling half a page with a string of ‘L’s and calling it a day, before being hounded by the Humor police for his mischief.

When assigning roles for students, those who weren’t randomly assigned an article were tasked with the standard art/photo requests or the formatting of the paper itself (the editors were contractually obligated to handle the editing and publishing processes). The illustrations and photos sent in were, let’s just say, tragic—someone sent in their entire photo collection, which included a truly embarrassing selfie that is now endorsed by @stuyslumped. The layout crew wasn’t great either, submitting a PDF with, ironically, no News section (editor: “What happened to our official slogan, ‘we put the NEWS in NEWSpaper?!?’”).

Aside from having assembled an incompetent team of student volunteers, the paper was also criticized for charging $2 a copy to cover its daily printing expenses. “With prices rising drastically, I don’t see why making our readers pay is so unusual. Screw the fact that we used to distribute the paper for free; now I enjoy pocketing the extr—I mean, saving up for future expenses,” Business editor Amber Shen commented.

However, the final nail in The Spectator’s coffin was its considerable decline in quality. With writers having homework to finish and meetings to attend, they just couldn’t find the time to write decent articles. As an example of how low its writing standards had dropped since the last published issue, Mairaj shared an excerpt from one of the drafts submitted at 11:59 p.m.:

“Today, mr Ruben stine, dr Nedwiked -Moore, and mr gross man came down with the dreaded disease known as covid. there infections were consistent with the current infection rates at stuy (obviously).

Aside from the fact that three teachers catching covid at the same time may be strange, my investigation into covid policies has not gone well [note to the editor: tell them what an absolute noob i am at conducting interviews]. ‘pls stop asking me abt this. i have told u in the past 40 interviews that they have not changed, now get the hell outta [my office],’ parent coordinateur and director of family engagement dina ingrain says.”

Mairaj later commented that she isn’t “cut out for this [EXPLETIVE].”

With The Spectator coming under fire for the poor quality of its articles and disorganized internal structure, it has since suspended publication indefinitely. Almost always ending with a threatening note, negotiations with Principal Yu have also been fruitless. But one thing hasn’t changed. Yu still stands outside his office, waiting for his newspaper to arrive with his lovely face plastered onto a new, long-awaited SEUNG! edition.