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Which one of these is not like the others?
update appended
Continuing my examination of Dartmouth’s public relations apparatus, I visited the College’s youtube channel today. (In youtube parlance, a user’s “channel” is the central page that displays the user’s uploaded videos.) Looks good, except for one small part in the lower left-hand corner:
Dartmouth’s youtube channel “subscribes” to four other channels. They are:
1. DartmouthMedSchool
2. TuckSchoolofBusiness
3. ThayerSchool
4. BarackObamadotcom.
Do mine eyes deceive me? Is this for real? Dartmouth College is explicitly endorsing a sitting politician in an official capacity! Who authorized this? Is it some kind of joke? A bizarre error? What else could it be?
JOE MALCHOW ADDS: …quoth Mr. Baron, certified Democrat. The odd thing about the College’s P.R. tentacles (though one is led to believe that Diana Pearson is not the author of this particular strangeness, and is working to change it) is the Gatsbian obsession with cool. It is so affected; it is the middle aged-Pontiac Sky-driving sweet dude of an uncle who buys a Gossip Girl thermos wrapped in organic Obama wrapping paper for his 21-year-old niece. The problem is that in its plodding aping of everything that seems academically fashionable, Dartmouth stands to lose who it is. One still sees anti-cigarette headlines on the College website, regularly. Dartmouth, students know, is the finest place on Earth to learn about the finest things of man and Earth. It isn’t a breakthrough “voice” in the imagined national “dialogue.” It educates potential breakthrough voices, and does so better than any other institution. ‘Twould be nice to see more of that in P.R. assailments.
UPDATE: Well, Dartmouth College was explicitly endorsing a sitting politician in an official capacity. This post went up around 3:30 a.m. By 8:03 a.m.—possibly earlier, I don’t know exactly when—the Obama subscription was gone. In the business world, a blunder like this would land someone’s head on a plate. At Dartmouth, the senseless bureaucrat responsible will in all probability be allowed to continue messing things up.
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