Letter from the Editor Opinion

Letter from the editor: We made a mistake

I am owning up to a mistake that we, The Cougar, as an organization made.

The Cougar published an article on Tuesday titled “UH needs to sort out its priorities” through our opinion section. After reading it, the article was not fact checked, regardless of the fact that it was published through the opinion section.

The article has since been taken down.

Opinion articles are still subject to the same fact checking that news and sports articles go through on a daily basis. That is not an excuse for our grievance. I’m not making any excuses for it, actually, because we are in the wrong.

It’s my job to hold this publication up to the highest standard, and I have failed to do so. Because of that, our credibility has diminished — something that as a news organization we must work twice as hard to get back.

There were plenty of things that could’ve been done to prevent this from happening but they weren’t, and for that I am truly sorry.

I will only work harder to make sure that you, the reader, can come trust The Cougar as a reliable, accurate and timely source for news.

— Glissette Santana, editor in chief

NOTE: A link to the article in question has been added to the letter.

13 Comments

  • Instead of making it disappear like it never happened why not add this statement to it. That is the problem with digital media, history can be erased. The coverup is worse than the crime.

  • What did the op-ed say?

    All I can find online at the moment is the lede: “Last month UH announced yet another sports facility under development. With old desks and parking problems, is UH prioritizing sports a little too…”

    I agree with the other commenters here. Since many readers have not seen the article, deleting it makes it difficult to understand your apology, or its rationale.

    Could you perhaps repost this piece, in the interest of transparency?

  • the problem was that is true?? that UH should in fact be prioritizing academic levels and the relations with good companies to ensure students get proper jobs.

  • The article referenced several athletic projects underway and that the University was prioritizing athletics over academics. The majority of most of the athletic upgrades are being funded by private donors…..NOT the University system itself. That was one major error I noticed in the article. It was a rant worthy of a Facebook post, not a journalistic approach at investigative reporting. Way too many errors and made our university look bad. Good move in taking the article down. Kudos!

  • The article in question said the University of Houston was spending money on the baseball program. A new scoreboard, field turf and a development center. The problem is the money being spent was raised by donations and private funds through the Cougar Baseball program. University spending had nothing to do with the baseball upgrades. The article was borderline slanderous and embarrassing.

  • Even if the money used for athletics is being raised or given by private entities, I still think the text shows a lack of focus in academics and also, specially, in the salary of staff and grad teachers. It is outrageous that our chancellor is making that amount of money in a public university which is intended to be, since the beginning, for the working class of this city. I hope the actual problem is the fact checking and not some pressure for those comments. TA´s and RA´s in this University are earning salaries way below the national poverty line, even when Houston is not a super expensive city. Lets say the athletics programs are self sustaining. What about the directives and managers, the provost and chancellor’s salaries?

  • Rice Alliance did a study years ago .. Quality Schools brought property owners “willing to pay” higher for a house because their kids futures were at stake. So elderly folks even with no kids realized that their asset value of their home was tied to local schools (HISD – West U – Ft Bend, Katy, etc) so voting against improving a school was sending down their lifetime home asset value.

    Now the Universities (Kahtor etc) find that donors $$$ are strongly tied to sports and the gift giving is easier. No Strong sports =’s outta sight ..outta mind…no giving.

  • This is the consistent problem of this website. Rarely do articles reference trusted sources of information. Your writers should know better. Information like the University budget is accessible online and you could easily reference that or use it to at least fact check. The line between opinion and “news” is so blurred in your paper.

Leave a Comment