Which section is superior?

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Photo courtesy of Alamy, modified by Emma Saltzman

Us section editors constantly bicker over which section of The Pitch is superior. Today, we shall settle out differences and determine who truly has the best section of The Pitch.

Breaking news: we’re the only section that’s not a snooze

I’m going to start this out by apologizing on the behalf of myself and the News section as a whole. I have the highest respect for my colleagues, a truly talented group of people, and while it may not seem like we love each other in this article, we just like to show our love in convoluted ways, in this case bashing each other for the whole world to see. With that, I shall commence my roasting of all the lowly sections of the Pitch.

You go to pick up a fresh new copy of The Pitch. What’s the first thing you see? The front page. Who does the front page? News. I mean, it’s called a NEWSpaper for a reason. News covers the most current and pressing events that are taking place in society. No one cares about A&E’s “Spring Movie Picks.” People want to know what is going on around them and how it affects their lives. We cover that. Some may argue that there are plenty more sources that report the news, but where are you going to get your news about what’s going on at WJ? Hate to break it to you, but your friend’s older brother has no idea what he’s talking about. We do.

Opinion is just a bunch of whining and complaining. NO ONE ASKED. Egotistical, narcissistic and closed-minded is how I would best describe their editors. They really think they’re hot stuff. News flash, they’re not. Opinion is arguably the least read section because NO ONE UNDERSTANDS WHAT THEY’RE SAYING. They really thought they did something by using words like “vitriolic” and “unencumbered.” On a near daily basis I have to suffer listening to them argue over word use. Even they don’t know what they’re saying. I’ll give them credit for being efficient, but they argue like a couple that’s been married 60 years.

I arrive next in Feature. Honestly, those section editors are some fine people. They’re led by two sophomores, both of whom are relatively quiet and keep to themselves (unlike the rest of the section editors, most of whom are juniors with BIG personalities). I get the vibe that they don’t want to be wrapped up in this whole mess that is the section rivalries, and that’s okay. I see Feature as more of an ally than an enemy. I mean, they’re babies. We’re quite similar, but News is basically just the cool older sister to Feature’s nerdy little brother. I mean, I think the fact that one of the editors leaving Feature to become a News editor next year speaks for itself.

Sports is only relevant to the people who follow it, unlike news which is all-encompassing. They are timely, relevant and close to the student body, but most people don’t really care about the most recent crew regatta or poms competition unless they’re on the teams themselves. I am not alone in saying that their editors are a hot mess. I don’t think I have ever seen them do so much as speak to each other. There are approximately two brain cells between the three editors and those two brain cells both belong to the one female sports editor. They’re always there until the last minute of press, their page layouts seldom go as planned and I truly believe they all secretly hate each other. If News is dubbed the “sorority,” then they’re the fraternity.

Somehow, A&E makes Sports look like the Washington Post. Their leadership is disastrous at best. Their spreads are often completed by the skin of their teeth. They never agree on a single thing. One of the editors has respectable taste\; the other, the human embodiment of a superiority complex, picks the most random bs for his Pitch picks. K-Pop? No sir. Give us something more than just what you listen to. Your narcissism is showing. Not only that, his distasteful and often offensive humor makes me want to rip my ears off. I don’t even know where he got his ego from, but my assumption is that it’s to compensate for how he is nothing but a tiny little man with mediocre taste in pop culture, which is concerning considering his role as an A&E editor. Maybe he would be as smart as he boasts he is if he actually applied himself, but he doesn’t. I seem to have gone off track in discussing my grievances with this one editor. The bottom line is that A&E is buried in the middle of the paper for a reason.

I am already prepared to hear the other section editors make sorority sister and white girl comments about News. They’re just jealous that we’re the only all-female section. Work. All I can say is that the readers know what section is the best, the front page is there for a reason and at least we don’t have a huge ego and clouded sense of self awareness.

Delusion abounds throughout The Pitch;

I saw the most painfully mediocre minds of my Pitch class destroyed by madness, dragging themselves through the dimly lit hallways, looking for an angry fix. Angelheaded hipsters sitting hollow-eyed in front of the supernatural delusion of computer screens, baring their blue-light-infused eyes to Heaven in a desperate attempt to be something they are not: competent editors.

News, Feature, Arts & Entertainment and Sports, might as well be living in Narnia if they think they have ascended anywhere near the lofty heights of Opinion. I wonder what it must be like to live life like it’s one big, long acid trip.

The Print Opinion Editors have the strongest partnership of all the section editors. We tirelessly work together to produce virtually infallible pages, glittering with insightful articles and risible cartoons, the byproducts of a committed, telepathic duo of all-star editors. And we have a way with words matched by none. We craft beautiful, eloquent sentences, which flow off the page like Beethoven and Bach. Take note, all the other “Editors” compliment Opinion at some point in their articles. Even when trying to smear and slander this glorious section, they cannot help but gaze in awe at Opinion, Eighth Wonder of the World. Do you think it’s a coincidence they continuously beg to write for this section? Each of them has written multiple articles for us. What section are they writing this article for? They just want to live vicariously through editors who know what they are doing and command respect across The Pitch. For all their complaints about the Opinion Editors’ narcissism, bickering, and frustrating word choice, they appear to be secretly enamored of us.

Some sections truly wallow in the muddy waters of deplorability. News, which should be a bastion of credibility, is now a cesspool of clickbait and fake news. At this point, I’m more willing to trust InfoWars than the front page of the Pitch. Opinion, on the other hand, cannot be wrong. We cherish everybody’s viewpoints and display them in fair, honest ways, ensuring every one of our contributors can deliver their messages. I really pity one of the News Editors. If she were to simply shut her big mouth, muffle her sororal whining and focus on creating quality content, she might actually cease dragging her section down with her and emerge from the doldrums of a subpar existence.

Now, Arts & Entertainment, I must admit is a bit trickier. I feel a little ashamed to say I’m quite fond of A&E. My liking for them is akin to a Five-Star Chef liking McDonalds. It’s trash, I know it, my colleagues know it, Pitch readers know it, even the A&E editors do. Honestly, that might be the perfect summation of A&E. It’s trash, sugary trash. To be fair, they do address significant societal questions: What’s Taylor Swift up to these days? What superheroes are going to be advertised in the next Marvel blockbuster? Opinion tackles truly weighty issues, like humanity’s narcissistic tendencies, political diversity in MCPS and Gen Z’s embrace of our differences. A&E is nothing more than a mouthpiece for propagandizing one of the editor’s perverted relationships with K-Pop and anime.

Onto Feature, the bastard child of News and A&E. What happens when you have nothing useful to say? What happens when all you are is a recycling can for pretentious, uninteresting articles? You get plopped right in the middle of the paper, doomed to be a fleeting memory of cluttered pages. Feature’s decidedly sophomoric content betrays their tender age. To be fair, sophomores are practically babies compared to the rest of the student body. Sweet-eyed cherubim. If only you had a positive impact on The Pitch.

But the most insignificant section is Sports—for them to be represented in The Pitch is like drawing in sharpie over the Mona Lisa—whose existence is so pointless they only get one sentence in this article, so I won’t be writing about the clowns who run the section or their oppressively after-the-fact coverage of long-forgotten, trivial events.

Perhaps I’ve been harsh. Obviously, every section has purpose. Dare I say, News, A&E, Feature and Sports might be the most important sections. After all, every flower blossoms from a bed of fertilizer.

Feature

You string words together so elegantly, 

Yet each one is laced with stupidity.

You’re full of naivete and narcissism,

Yet you write that you can handle criticism.

You soar up high to the sun,

But your wax is melting, you’re almost done.

A cohesive team takes but two,

Sadly now it’s just you.

Do you think your namesake would be proud,

If he saw you up on your cloud?

Fret not good sir I’m almost done,

Few simple words till my song is sung.

Some advice from the “young”;

Climb down your ladder, just a rung.

Fore using big words is not all that it takes,

One day we won’t be here to catch your mistakes.

So take these words or even don’t,

Will it matter, it probably won’t.

The battle is over, it ends in parley,

Yet who is the captain at the end of the day?

Up, down, fore and around,

Life keeps going round and round.

Plunge your pen into our hearts,

To feel a sword it takes smarts.

Don’t worry grasshopper you’ve a years time,

We’re still here to help you rhyme.

So congrats on winning next year’s election,

But Feature is still the best section.

-Stella (But actually approved and revised by Caeden since we are a team and not just a lone editor)

This is not an article to destroy the other sections. We are a newspaper. Without all of our sections working together we would have nothing. Opinion provides comic relief, A&E provides entertainment, News provides vital information, Sports provides an important part of our school community, and Feature provides a voice for the students within that community.

A&E

I would first like to extend my apologies to my fellow section editors, who are blissfully unaware of the verbal thrashing they’re about to endure. It breaks my heart, as a man who takes pride in his own seemingly limitless magnanimity and benevolence, to have to utterly eviscerate the other newspaper sections. But alas, they leave me no choice.

The Feature section lavishes in mediocrity and “hip” stories. To be honest, a large percentage of the student population cares very little for The Pitch, and yet the Feature section primarily exists to cover stories and topics that relate primarily to the student body. See the paradox? The section’s existence is unneeded\; it’s useless and arbitrary, and carries very little importance in the grand scheme of The Pitch. Not to mention it’s the only section run by underclassmen, which clearly disqualifies them from any accolades and lauding. Additionally, when contrasted with the A&E spreads, Feature’s pale compared to the splendor that is the A&E creative aesthetic.

Then we arrive at the News section, who can only pride themselves for being “all-encompassing” and “important” because they cover recent issues. It’s not as if there are a myriad of other news entities, that are a.) more professional, b.) have more experienced staff, and c.) have a greater range of sources and tools at their disposal, that students and staff can go to instead to find a more nuanced and educated approach to a topic.

Oh, wait.

This doesn’t even cover the sorority that are the News Print section editors, who are led by a basic white girl that is so delirious with delusions of grandeur, that she thinks she’s “quirky” because she has no filter and suffers from scoliosis. Her tastes are vanilla, which on its own would hardly be a bad thing, but to proclaim that one is “not a basic bitch” while sipping a Starbucks drink, dressed in an oversized sweater paired with leggings and white sneakers, carrying a hydroflask in one bag pocket, and a gaudy wallet with the keys to her white-mom suburban SUV in the other, is simply outrageous. At the end of the day, she’s just another white girl going through her own version of a midlife crisis. I’ll refrain from targeting the other two News editors, but just picture a pack of hyenas loaded up on crack and MD 20/20, and you get the entire section during press week.

I swear I’ll eat her bunny one day like I ate my dog.

All that’s left are Sports and Opinion, and while I feel sorry for targeting a section that suffers from brain fluid leakage, the fates have chosen the Sports section to be my next victim. Then again, there’s not much left for me to attack—the dysfunctional threeway that is the Sports section has done most of the work for me. It’s a microcosm of “Game of Thrones,” where incompetent rulers lead their nation to ruin due to greed and jealousy. Their pages are always the last to be finished during press, usually because they’re getting food. There’s no semblance of order in their section. At least News is united by the fact that they’re all women, so despite their ear splitting screaming during press, they barely get their work done. On the other hand, Sports are like the Three Stooges, if the Three Stooges were indecisive cucks that would rather spend a week playing 2048 instead of getting work done. Truly, they are the embodiment of the current administration.

And we now arrive at the end. My forbidden lover; the Romeo to my Juliet, the Paris to my Helen, the Bill Clinton to my Monica Lewinsky—the Opinion section. Her sweet nectar entices me, distracting me from my role as an A&E editor. Yet, just as it was written in the Book of Genesis, she is a snake in the Garden of Eden. Her tools are the two Print Opinion section editors, who pervade my dreams with lies, deceit and unlimited porn subscriptions. They embody each of the Seven Deadly Sins, emboldened by their egos to try and usurp the balance of power within The Pitch. While they are some of the most talented writers within the staff, they’re held back by their own self-imposed parodies: the narcissistic savant and the self-righteous progressive. Not to mention, their section is the one that runs those pointlessly quaint comic strips, so to include them in the running for best section is laughable.

All that’s left now is rubble and ruin, and the A&E section is the victor of this match of Fortnite: Battle Royale™. “Why is that?” you may ask. The answer is simple: we are superior. Our pages are always among the first to be done, and while the other sections may ridicule the relationship between myself and my fellow A&E editor, they’re the ones stuck toiling for hours on end. When compared to the dull, monochrome pages of Opinion and Feature, and the garish design of News and Sports, the A&E layout is the definition of beauty. The content of A&E is relatable for all ages and cliques, and unlike News, is truly all-encompassing. Pop-culture news? Check. Upcoming music and shows? Check. Movie and music reviews? Check. Vast coverage of all types of media, foreign and domestic? Check. Our success is built off of trust; while we may bicker and roast one another, we both know that work is being done efficiently.

And while the other sections may jest, we do indeed have the best fashion sense.

Life is defined by competition, yet while the other sections endlessly clamber over one another, A&E reigns supreme, unchallenged by the pedestrian masses.

The scores are in… Sports wins

I’ll come straight out and say it, Sports is the best section. We have the most students involved material and who doesn’t love supporting their Wildcats? Not only do we cover amazing student athletic achievement, but also major sports news happening in Maryland and around the world. Sports is a topic that unifies all. Not to mention, but sports is one of two sections that gets to be in color. Why? Because we are superior.

Some of my counterparts may disagree, so now it is time to highlight the reasons as to why their sections lack the certain pizzazz that sports has.

Beginning with feature, I have never actually seen the feature editors in person. Therefore, they don’t exist. The things that we “feature” in the paper are meant to reflect students, but usually are the most obscure facts and spreads.

The Arts and Entertainment editors spend more time arguing with each other over trivial topics than doing their work during class, leading to rushed work that just barely makes the cut. Sometimes the review and Pitch Picks are things that I’ve never even heard of, and I don’t think that I live under a rock. One of the editors hides behind his “fashion forward” clothing and superiority complex, though he is nothing but a shell of the man he wishes he were.

While the news section claims to be all-encompassing, the information that they cover is only the “most recent” but by the time the paper comes out, some of those articles are old news. The dynamic between the Print News Editors is something that I’ve never seen before. The News section is reminiscent of three sisters arguing for their parents’ love.

The opinion section is where I draw the line. To me, it seems they pad their writing by adding as many words as they can use from the thesaurus to sound more astute and ameliorate their section. Get it? Exactly my point. Out of all of the chaotic energies on this staff, the Print Opinion Editors take the cake. While they argue like married grandparents, they are constantly punctual with their writing, almost to the point where it is frustrating that they are always the first ones done.

Also, opinion is the laziest of the five sections to write for. You don’t have to conduct a single interview, simply bust out a 500 word article in 15 minutes by just repeating your own bullshit views on odd topics. The point-counterpoints are usually on the most random topics that just seem to be written to eat space in the paper. They think that they are so slick, changing the name from “Point- Counterpoint” to “Charging the Mound” but I see right through their spectacular baseball pun.

While the other sections may mock the sports section for our tardiness and “collective two braincells,” we provide coverage of the most amount of students from all of the wonderful sports that are offered at our fine Walter Johnson High School. The sports section is the reason why students read the paper, to collect on what is being said about the team they play on, and then do they read the rest of whatever everyone has to say. Our Athlete of the Issue is a long standing feature of the paper that students get excited to read about and see on the back page of The Pitch, and it is in color! That isn’t something that every section can say about their pages. The camaraderie between sports editors is so great, we can communicate telepathically.

Photo courtesy of Alamy, modified by Emma Saltzman

Us section editors constantly bicker over which section of The Pitch is superior. Today, we shall settle out differences and determine who truly has the best section of The Pitch.

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