In a report in the Daily Pennsylvanian, it was revealed that Drexel University’s independent student newspaper has been fabricating its news stories for the past 89 years. The story, titled “Our Poor Neighbor Newspaper Is Worse Than We Thought,” ran in the March 10 issue of the paper and gave rise to social media chatter among the students of the University of Pennsylvania.
As the leftover issues were being discarded, however, a spry gust of wind plucked a copy from a waste bin, carried it over to Penn’s latest construction zone, fluttered it over the Papadakis Integrated Sciences Building and into the concrete wasteland we call “the quad,” where it made its way into the hands of a freshman communications major. This student, who asked to remain nameless, ran to the Handschumacher Dining Center and shouted the news to the crowded dining hall. And still, no one really cared.
The staff at The Rectangle, however, took this allegation very seriously and started a full investigation in order to discover the truth. In fact, during a full review of the paper’s archives, it was found that The Triangle has made up every single news story it has published since its founding.
Photo Credit: Jerek Detter
Past news stories that indeed seemed suspicious — like those claiming Drexel students created apps with hundreds of downloads or went abroad to make a difference in the world — proved to be completely untrue as students have only ten weeks in a term and no time to accomplish anything but coursework. Recently, editors and reporters were found to pilfer these uplifting stories from Upworthy to fill their pages, using photos of perfectly diverse groups of students holding flags and banners found using StockPhoto.
Human interest pieces focusing on the brightest students at Drexel and the interview series “Triangle Talks,” which spotlights student leaders, were found to be completely fabricated. In fact, many of these stories were based on accounts of students at other universities, namely the exquisite University of Pennsylvania, although in two humiliating cases they turned out to be about mere Temple students.
In one of the most disconcerting pieces of this scandal, The Triangle’s front page was found to be full of pictures of old white men and buildings. It turns out that these stories were also indeed fictionalized. The frequently featured old white men are really the grandparents of staff members.
“We just thought that is what the people wanted to read about,” Triangle Editor-in-Chief Rawr Rawr Sandar said, explaining this weird trend. “When you watch, like, CNN and Fox News and credible sources like that, they’re always talking about old white men in meetings, making decisions. My staff and I just assumed that’s what the people wanted to read.”
As for the photographs of buildings that so often appear above the fold, Photo Editor Taylor Swift said, “Oh, those are just the easiest to take. Like, no one even has to be there. The building just sits there, all still, and doesn’t really change, so you can use them over and over. Well, until the next construction project begins. Usually we can get like two solid weeks of photographs before the buildings are knocked down to make space for a new one.”
The Triangle often “reports” on these new construction sites and Drexel’s plans for new buildings. So, if they’ve been making up these tales, how do new buildings keep cropping up? Well, apparently when President Curly Fries sees these reports each Friday, he becomes convinced he must have forgotten about one of his many meetings or important decisions (as most busy men tend to do). He then calls up his construction buddies and they just start digging. This is why so many Drexel construction projects get behind: They actually begin after The Triangle has lied to the student body about them and the administration must scramble to keep up.
The worst offense The Rectangle has discovered about this massive cover-up is the cause of the fire in University Crossings late last year. It turns out that it was a pretty slow week for The Triangle, so an unnamed staff member cooked up a scheme to create something newsworthy to print. Knowing that UCross is a pretty useless dungeon, and holding a grudge against a student she worked with on a failed group project, the staff member decided to sneak into said student’s apartment and hold a candle to the smoke detector. The staff member only intended to set the emergency system off and flood her enemy’s apartment.
However, in a perfect demonstration of how unsafe University Crossings is for human life, the emergency system was out of service. Out of anger at such shoddy craftsmanship and the imminent failure of her plan, the staff member dropped the candle on the floor, starting the fire that displaced several students and ruined dozens of overpriced textbooks.
The fate of The Triangle is undecided as of yet, but The Rectangle suspects the paper will be kicked off campus and our staff will finally be able to take over. Since The Triangle gets no funding from the University, the Student Organization Death Panel may just wait until they run out of money. To save the paper, editors said that they are currently working on a complete overhaul of The Triangle brand by focusing on online content and social media. We hear editors from BuzzFeed will be visiting campus to show the editors the art of the “listicle” and teach a seminar called “How We Will Bludgeon Print Journalism.” The Triangle may recover from this scandal but, if they do, campus probably will never pick up their comeback issue anyway.