Lindsay Tully’s article made the laughable assertion that; “Democratically elected in 1998, Chavez has ruled without censoring the media, for perhaps the first time in Venezuelan history.” Chavez’s crackdown on the media has resulted in the harassment and even murder of opposition journalists and bloggers and in the eyes of many constitutes a serious human rights violation. This could have been revealed with a simple Google search. To ignore this, willfully or not, is to do a disservice to individuals who risk life and limb to fight for the very freedoms we take for granted. I was a columnist for the Cynic several years ago and could not but notice the downward spiral of journalistic standards that have occurred at the paper this past year. Student activism is covered uncritically and national news is interpreted through a left or far-left prism. There’s nothing wrong with putting features such as these on the editorial page, but it is not fact-based journalism. In so doing, you turn your back on the examples set by the countless individuals who have sat in your positions in years past who worked tirelessly to make the Cynic a respectable publication.