I was quite surprised to arrive on campus Wednesday morning to see the headline in The State News, “Bush? Barely!” Barely is right. In fact the election results had not been officially stated according to CNN. I watched the morning news, which gave the impression that because of problems in the voting booths in Palm Beach County, Fla., approximately 3,000-plus votes went to Pat Buchanan instead of Vice President Al Gore. Florida is recounting the votes and will issue the results no later than the end of the business day today.

A headline for an article I read on the Internet read “A day after Election Day, the U.S. presidential race remains a who-won-it mystery that will be solved when Florida reveals the outcome of its vote recount.” So why would The State News print “Bush and running mate Dick Cheney will assume office Jan. 20”? It seems to me this would have been a great opportunity to write an article about what actually happened and not jump to the easy conclusion that Bush won. There is still a possibility that after the recount Gore could be the one to take office in January. I feel a major issue such as this should not be reported inaccurately to the university population, especially by the MSU paper. To restate my point, I think the reporters should do a bit more research or at least present accurate information instead of jumping to conclusions before the results are factual.

Emily Kuilema
dietetics senior