The Stony Brook Press, a self-proclaimed community news and features paper, attempted to destroy hundreds of copies of its own publication on March 11. Press staffers stacked the papers in front of an office in the same corridor as theirs, in the basement of the student union. The Press is currently undergoing an investigative audit by the Undergraduate Student Government, the source of their funding.
Jowy Romano, the executive editor of The Press refused to comment, but lower-level staffers have stepped forward. Johnny Valone, a 31-year-old undergraduate, and Conrad Harper, a 49-year-old graduate student, admitted stacking the papers in front of the office of The Stony Brook Stateman.
“Jowy told us we were under investigation and to get rid of as many issues as possible,” Harper said. “Before I changed my major for the second time, I was an engineering major, so I decided to enlist Johnny and stack up as many issues as possible in front of a door down the hall. You know, like the Republicans do it.”
The papers were found by Statesman Sports Editor William Lahti the next morning. About 300 copies of The Press’ Feb. 28 issue were stacked to the ceiling in front of the door, supported by clear plastic wrap. Andrew Pernick, the managing editor of The Press, cleaned up the mess at the request of The Stateman.
“Apparently, the Press was trying to purge their entire stash of the Feb. 28 issue,” Irving Kennedy, the USG student prosecutor in charge of the investigative audit, said. The Press was afraid that a misspelled word on the cover of the Feb. 28 issue would compromise future funding, according to Kennedy. “Yeah, the mistake sucks. But we honestly were auditing them because we thought they were housing graduated editors in the office illegally.”
Since then, Kennedy has charged The Press with wasting USG money. “When I first heard about the attempted cover up I decided not to retaliate. But then I opened up the issue. Like ten pages of comics? Come on, these guys are freeloading,” Kennedy said.
The Press office, once anticipating an audit, is now preparing itself for the total freeze of its funding. “The whole place is depressing,” Valone said. “We wrote an article about how Kennedy sucks. Everyone just smokes a lot of pot now. Even more pot.” On March 24, a Press staffer was arrested by University Police for being under the influence and for lewd behavior.
“I can’t comment on that,” Pernick said. “But for your information, those allegations about housing ex-Press editors in our office is totally false. Most ex-Press editors live with their girlfriends or with their parents, statistically.”
“We’re just going to show up to our hearing stoned,” Valone said. “This world is so messed up. There’s no hope.”
