Georgetown University has two major campus newspapers, The Hoya, published twice weekly, and The Voice, published weekly. As an undergraduate some years back, I spent much of my college career, to the detriment of my college career, working at the Voice.
Like any two institutions in close competition and proximity (they occupy adjacent offices in the student center), The Hoya and The Voice have developed a relationship, rivalry even, that ranges from the insouciant to the deathly serious. Hoya staffers seethe over how their ad revenues subsidize Voice operations, while Voice staffers stew over The Hoya’s massive sense of self-importance.
Each April Fools’ Day, The Hoya chooses to print a special issue full of mostly hamhanded and occasionally offensive parody articles. The Voice, in my day, mainly ignored them, saving things for the traditional year-end softball game in Whitehaven Park. (We did once did pile newspapers in front of the Hoya door while dozens were locked inside having a staff meeting.) Then a few years back, after some Hoya staffers were discovered infiltrating the Voice offices next door, several Voicers climbed into the Leavey Center rafters and hid a remote-controlled battery-op doorbell above the suspended ceiling, then proceeded to use it to torment the self-proclaimed “paper of record” for months.
The prank offensive continues apace: This year, Voicers wrapped pretty much every item in the Hoya office in spare copies of the Voice and tape.
Now, bragging to the world about your clever prank—-not really in the spirit of the thing, you know?
But going on the Voice blog to express your righteous outrage at the prank?
That’s our Hoya!