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A coal to the Brown Daily Herald. In a shocking revelation that has rocked the Brown community, the Brown Daily Herald has been found guilty of using child labor to acquire the diamonds and coal necessary for the paper's weekly "Diamonds and Coal" award series.
The story broke last week when a student, who wished to remain anonymous, tipped the Brown Noser off to the location of the Haily DeRald Mine in Woonsocket. A former head of the mine, Robert Binder, said that "we figured it was subtle enough, and it sounded Dutch, like DeBeers or something."
Leading the investigation of the case is Lieutenant Dan Schneider of the Woonsocket Police. "I've never heard of something like this happening. When they first told me about it, I thought it was just some prank a college lampoon would pull or something like that," he remarked.
Child laborers were often compensated with free home-delivery of the Daily Herald in addition to wages that Chandler Farmington described as "meager." Amenities on the site of the mine were sparse at best, and there has been talk of unionizing among the young workers. "You know, if we had some say in who got the diamonds and coal, we might not make such a fuss," remarked Farmington.
It is not surprising that a student-run organization looks for cheap alternatives in times of economic hardship, but this particular behavior has been roundly condemned by all members of the campus. "Such contravention of Brown's dedication to progressive sensibilities when certain groups face oppression, both political and economic, in a time of ubiquitous disparity, is both inappropriate inconceivable," remarked self-described activist, and frequent ADHD trigger, Rachel Enser '11.
Some recipients of the Diamond award, typically given out to someone worthy of commendation in the past week, have returned their diamonds in an effort to avoid scandal. The Daily Herald declined to comment to a paper of peerless integrity like the Noser, but members of the Brown community are expecting an apology soon. "I don't know if my overwhelming sense of guilt at unknowingly abetting practices like these can ever be erased," remarked Herald reader Mallory Feasance '10.
Greg Feinsteinbaum '12 offered some suggestions for the Herald's editorial board: "They could do like 'Pearls and Oysters,' 'Syrup and Maple Trees' or maybe even 'Crack and Coke.'" Other students suggested discontinuing the column altogether, and still others recommended that they "just give a diamond or two to the children and everything would be smoothed over."
The Daily Herald has displayed no other similar transgressions in its long and storied history. "It's stuff like this that makes me miss the good ol' days of harmless yellow journalism," commented Jerry Attric '32. Some have remarked that the gravity of this situation reflects the plight of struggling newspapers across the country, and the Brown community will watch closely in the coming months to see if such a theory proves true.
