G-d help us all.

After YU student publications went a whopping seventy-eight days without a controversy, surprising nearly everyone except celebrity Kim Kardashian who felt that seventy-eight days is too long, The Beacon felt obliged to disrupt the serenity and calm that has begun to settle.

The Beacon released another article this week, written with the sole intent of helping the Quipster staff with writers block. The piece, “Why Sixty-Seven Years is a Super Long Time,” essentially accuses Jews of overreacting when it comes to remembering petty things like genocide. The general consensus from the YU community about this controversial article is similar to their last, a piece titled “How Do I Even Begin to Explain This Crap” that resulted in a resounding “Please shut up” from its many annoyed readers.

The readership of The Beacon has suffered significantly after these last two fiascos, as the newspaper attempts to reach out to the really obscure Jew-with-anti-Semetic-leanings-who-still-cares-about-controversial-Halachic-issues demographic. As it rapidly alienates more and more readers, there is a worry that people will no longer find the reputability in a publication that publishes anything ever written by anyone with an opinion. As one blog writer eloquently expressed, “A Constitutional amendment for free speech doesn’t make you any less of an idiot for saying something stupid.” Luckily, The Associate, which recently faced a similar problem, offered to help The Beacon win back readers, trying its best to not exacerbate the damage. 

The Associate, a name now synonymous with integrity and shrewd journalism through savvy marketing skills, was successful in changing its own public image by shedding its catchy high school nickname, “The Ass.”   As a result, they naturally felt that they’d be the perfect help, but they soon realized that helping The Beacon gain credibility would be a tough challenge, despite the huge improvement an affiliation with The Associate is. Sure, they could help increase the number of readers by using their own strategy of placing coupons that were only valid during winter vacation in the back of the newspaper, but that probably wouldn’t be effective since The Beacon is online. They eventually developed a PR strategy, designed to imbue the other publication with the same key ingredients that make The Associate so great. 

After calling us some immature names, a representative from The Associate told us some of the techniques that The Beacon was told to start implementing. They advised, “First, the articles should have multiple spelling errors. Not only does this make the reader feel smart, it also gets a buzz going around the water coolers. Next, the articles should be more outlandish and absurd. Nobody cares about a Jewish girl who may have spent a night in a hotel room with a guy. But I think they’ll read an article that discusses the Halachic ramifications of having a Bar Mitzvah for a monkey, Eh? Finally, the articles should be more open to wacky conspiracy theories, as well as being disorganized and all over the place. Such as, if the moon landing happened, did it happen on Shabbos?”

The most important tip The Associate gave to The Beacon was to remember this slogan: “You can’t spell infamous without famous.”