The Michigan Every Three Weekly
Encyclopedia
The Michigan Every Three Weekly is a student publication at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor modeled after the satirical news
publication The Onion
. The Every Three Weekly (coloquially referred to as the E3W) contains a collection of fictional news articles that satirize local, national, and international events and public figures. Since the Every Three Weekly reports stories both real and imagined, it is not intended to be taken literally.
The Every Three Weekly derives most of its humor from presenting orthodox events in unexpected and often ludicrous ways. It begins by taking often overlooked events in daily life and then inserting situational humor. A large degree of its headlines employ puns and other common double entendre
.
The Michigan Every Three Weekly is one of many student-run publications on the University of Michigan Ann Arbor campus. Among these includes the Michigan Daily
, a newspaper in the vein of the Associated Press, the Gargoyle Humor Magazine
, another satirical publication on campus, and SHEI magazine, a campus fashion and culture publication.
students at the University of Michigan. In what they felt was a lack of observational humor concerning the University, they developed the newspaper in hopes that it would find like-minded readers, getting inspiration from the popular newspaper The Onion.
The Every Three Weekly also will run special issues pertaining to national and local events, including Presidential Elections, Freshmen Orientations and the Senior Issue around graduation in May.
.
The Michigan Every Three Weekly is a favorite among students on campus. The majority of students, upon realizing that it is intended to entertain rather than instruct, remain loyal to the publication throughout its run.
The publication has been protected by numerous Free Speech rulings in the past, noting that the University of Michigan is in fact
a public institution where newspaper funding cannot be limited due to unwanted articles.
In an effort to expand its viewership as well as its journalistic endeavors, the paper is currently in the works to attach a non-satirical entertainment section within the paper, a la The Onion's "A.V. Club".
--and one Joseph Stallone (a la Joseph Stalin
) for Vice President.
As most successful campaigns in this modern era, the Every Three Weekly's candidate began as a Facebook group of like-minded supporters who felt uplifted by Marks' message, which focused on eliminating the wage system and implementing many more yogurt stands/shops around campus. Funded entirely by personal donations that were under $5 by students on campus, along with the promise to not take money from any school organizations or lobbyists, Karlos Marks continued to gain support mostly by word of mouth and by intense flyer-ing by the students within the organization
For their issue released Monday, April 4, 2011, the Every Three Weekly ran three pages and one back page of campaign material for Karlos Marks, including information on his platform as well as a detailed chart comparing him to his opponents stances on the wage system, civil rights, suffrage, and yogurt. The paper featured a full back page that showed Karlos along with his popular slogan: "I stand for several things". Days before the polls opened online, the editors of the newspaper made an announcement via Facebook that Joseph Stallone had since dropped from the ticket, due to conflicting interests between the candidates (as well as the need for the write-in signatures to all be exactly matching if the votes are to count).
The final elections results were somewhat astounding for the fake candidate, and both the front-running MForward party and the Every Three Weekly were astonished at the success of the candidate. Coming in a shocking 2nd place finish with 520 votes cast, the write-in of "Karlos Marks" was only the tip of the iceberg for the E3W, as numerous misspellings—including "Carlos Marks", "Karlos Marx", "Carlos Marx", "Karl Marx", "Karlos Marks and Joseph Stallone", "Carol Marques"--all received sizable voting blocks as well, and while they couldn't officially be attributed to the tally for Karlos, the newspaper took this as a win too. Along with this, the newspaper found it especially shocking that they outperformed the Defend Affirmation Action Party.
Along with this impressive 2nd place finish in the main election, several complementary elections also found success for Karlos Marks. Karlos Marks received enough votes to be placed on the esteemed boards for the Business School, the Rackham Graduate School, the College of Pharmacy, as well as a first-place finish within the School of Public Health. However, since all of these organizations had rules stipulating that the candidate be an actual person and not a made-up entity, Karlos Marks had to surrender his wins to the bourgeoisie. Furthermore, Karlos Marks received a seat
on the DPS (Department of Public Safety) Oversight Board, a branch of the University's own policing service. Since this particular position didn't originally have a rule in place banning fictional candidates from taking office, the original refusal to seat Karlos Marks in his rightful seat was contested, but eventually it was deemed not worth the fight and thus Karlos Marks again had to forfeit a seat he rightfully earned.
Reaction to the wins by a fake candidate on campus were swift and mostly jovial. Students, most of whom knew little and cared even less about student government, felt that this candidate spoke for them more or less in regards to their frustration on the inabilities of the MSA organization to get much accomplished. Since the student government could neither trump the University President, nor the Board of Regents, nor any Trustees, the inaction by the organization beyond minor accomplishments spoke volumes to the degree of how Marks acted as a social commentary for the campus mood.
.
A prominent event of this nature came when the paper spoofed a protest by Native American students over a campus organization called the "Michagamua Society" where the students occupied the Michagamua office for several weeks. The paper joked that a settlement between the organization and the protestors was reached by renaming the Michagamua office "Big Chief Win'um Casino." A prominent Cherokee
chief named Patrick Myers organized a successful protest with other members of his tribe by famously protesting the article on horseback while threatening all writers with a crossbow. Eventually the E3W redacted the article. Despite this, one of the paper's mottos is that if it is not being threatened by litigation at least once a semester, then it is not doing its job.
In 2005, following the printing of a story about student athletes headlined “Phelps To Major In Pussy", Executive Associate Athletic Director Michael Stevenson said he felt obligated to approach the Every Three Weekly publication and the UAC executive board, which controls the newspaper’s funding. Stevenson was quoted as saying, “I think that that kind of satire is unbecoming to any student at the University,” Stevenson said. “It adds nothing to our campus community to have that kind of discussion.” UAC President Mark Hindelang, however, had no plans to forcefully censor the Every Three Weekly, citing U.S. Supreme Court precedent.
As found by the 1969 U.S. Supreme Court case "Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District" and the 2001 U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit case "Kincaid v. Gibson", public schools cannot censor a student publication, reduce its funding or discipline its editors for the purpose of controlling content.
Again, the publication found controversy in 2007. When the highly esteemed Ross School of Business
at the University of Michigan sought to silence the Michigan Every Three Weekly's satirical stories about their own students, the back-and-forth emails between University officials leaked to the staff of the Every Three Weekly. This emails were likely obtained via illegal tampering. Among the emails included one citing several black students who were offended by a fake front front-page story on Proposal 2 in the magazine's November issue headlined "White Students with Black-Sounding Names Rejoice at Passage of Proposal 2." The Business School succeeded in removing all publications distributed within their own grounds, but this was halted when it was pointed out that any school paper can be handed out on campus without restriction. In the end, a spokesperson for the Every Three Weekly apologized to the Business School for the situation and no further actions were taken against the paper.
Among others include the recent flare-up involving the local chapter of the Alpha Delta Phi
fraternity, located nearby on State Street. After being clearly acknowledged in an article mocking the unhealthy living standards of their house, the fraternity claimed libel against the paper and sought to have the paper apologize for its intention. As a result of this, now all school references must be done with anonymity or must involve school figures that have entered the public domain (i.e. President Mary Sue Coleman).
Also, in the wake of the departure of beloved Professor Ralph Williams in Spring 2009, the Every Three Weekly had an article parodying his departure. The E3W printed their issue with the parodying story but mistakenly chose a photo used and owned by the Michigan Daily, one of Ralph Williams accepting flowers in class. The owner of the photo claimed infringement and stated the paper neither asked nor was granted permission to use said photo. In response, the E3W posted a public apology that can be seen on their website.
In the final issue of the Fall 2010 semester, the paper ran a story entitled, "Mall Santa Tells Child Exactly What He Wants For Christmas", a satirical piece highlighting a fictional mall Santa that had pedophiliac tendencies. While no actual expletives or direct references were used, the newspaper was met with resistance, criticism, and claims to copyright/child-rights infringement from the local mall in Ann Arbor: Briarwood Mall
. This was because the paper mistakenly included the mall's name in the article, which goes against the paper's policy of not using local businesses in name. A quick Google
search with the keywords "briarwood", "mall", and "santa" allowed for the E3W's article to appear as high as the third result (most likely due to the paper's connection with the University of Michigan and its ranking on Google). It is believed by the staff of the paper that this probably confused some local citizens interested in merely looking up the real, non-fictional Santa Claus, but were instead led to an article lampooning Santa. After a few tense exchanges between the paper and the Briarwood Mall, to which University officials reluctantly had to get involved to defend the paper, it was decided to keep the article online but to merely remove any references to the mall. The mall has yet to apologize for its own actions, however, as some of their actions border-lined on unfounded defamation toward the paper.
Funded by the University Activities Center, located in the Michigan Union
, the paper has seen extensive changes in recent years brought on by public polling.
The staff, which includes writers, layout editors, and artists, occupy the 4th floor UAC office of the Michigan Union. The office serves as the staff's main think tank, as well as housing many posters from past UAC events.
News satire
thumb|right|220px|[[The Daily Show with Jon Stewart]] is a news satire program.News satire, also called fake news , is a type of parody presented in a format typical of mainstream journalism, and called a satire because of its content...
publication The Onion
The Onion
The Onion is an American news satire organization. It is an entertainment newspaper and a website featuring satirical articles reporting on international, national, and local news, in addition to a non-satirical entertainment section known as The A.V. Club...
. The Every Three Weekly (coloquially referred to as the E3W) contains a collection of fictional news articles that satirize local, national, and international events and public figures. Since the Every Three Weekly reports stories both real and imagined, it is not intended to be taken literally.
The Every Three Weekly derives most of its humor from presenting orthodox events in unexpected and often ludicrous ways. It begins by taking often overlooked events in daily life and then inserting situational humor. A large degree of its headlines employ puns and other common double entendre
Double entendre
A double entendre or adianoeta is a figure of speech in which a spoken phrase is devised to be understood in either of two ways. Often the first meaning is straightforward, while the second meaning is less so: often risqué or ironic....
.
The Michigan Every Three Weekly is one of many student-run publications on the University of Michigan Ann Arbor campus. Among these includes the Michigan Daily
Michigan Daily
The Michigan Daily is the daily student newspaper of the University of Michigan. Its first edition was published on September 29, 1890. The newspaper is financially and editorially independent of the University's administration and other student groups, but shares a university building with other...
, a newspaper in the vein of the Associated Press, the Gargoyle Humor Magazine
Gargoyle Humor Magazine
Gargoyle Humor Magazine or The Gargoyle is the official student-run humor magazine for the University of Michigan. It has been satirizing both local and national events for more than one hundred years...
, another satirical publication on campus, and SHEI magazine, a campus fashion and culture publication.
History
The Michigan Every Three Weekly was started by a group of engineeringEngineering
Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...
students at the University of Michigan. In what they felt was a lack of observational humor concerning the University, they developed the newspaper in hopes that it would find like-minded readers, getting inspiration from the popular newspaper The Onion.
Regular features
Regular features of the Every Three Weekly include but are not limited to:- National News
- Ann Arbor News
- International News
- Entertainment
- Sportraits
- The Staff Infection
- Crime Note
- Point-Counterpoint
- The Infograph
- "Local Voices"
- Backcover Story (a story or infographic that covers the backpage)
The Every Three Weekly also will run special issues pertaining to national and local events, including Presidential Elections, Freshmen Orientations and the Senior Issue around graduation in May.
Notoriety
Reaching out to students starting at summer orientation, it is the intention of the paper to let students connect to their campus by means of a humorous voiceVoice
Voice may refer to:* Human voice* Voice control or voice activation* Writer's voice* Voice acting* Voice vote* Voice message-In film:* Voice , a 2005 South Korean film* The Voice , a 2010 Turkish horror film directed by Ümit Ünal...
.
The Michigan Every Three Weekly is a favorite among students on campus. The majority of students, upon realizing that it is intended to entertain rather than instruct, remain loyal to the publication throughout its run.
The publication has been protected by numerous Free Speech rulings in the past, noting that the University of Michigan is in fact
Fact
A fact is something that has really occurred or is actually the case. The usual test for a statement of fact is verifiability, that is whether it can be shown to correspond to experience. Standard reference works are often used to check facts...
a public institution where newspaper funding cannot be limited due to unwanted articles.
In an effort to expand its viewership as well as its journalistic endeavors, the paper is currently in the works to attach a non-satirical entertainment section within the paper, a la The Onion's "A.V. Club".
2011 Campaign for MSA President: Vote or Die Laughing
Following years of complacency and reduced turnout for the University's student elections for the Michigan Student Assembly (or MSA), the Every Three Weekly thought it'd be an advantageous move for the paper to endorse, publish, and advertise a candidate that spoke to what students cared about most on campus. With a mostly uncontested election campaign between the MForward party (of Andrew Shirvell notoriety), and the Defend Affirmative Action Party, the paper decided to make a statement about their apathy toward student elections and promote a write-in candidate. Initially thought to be just listed as "the Candidate", the campaign quickly evolved into a double-billing of one Karlos Marks for President—a clear spin on the philosopher Karl MarxKarl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
--and one Joseph Stallone (a la Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
) for Vice President.
As most successful campaigns in this modern era, the Every Three Weekly's candidate began as a Facebook group of like-minded supporters who felt uplifted by Marks' message, which focused on eliminating the wage system and implementing many more yogurt stands/shops around campus. Funded entirely by personal donations that were under $5 by students on campus, along with the promise to not take money from any school organizations or lobbyists, Karlos Marks continued to gain support mostly by word of mouth and by intense flyer-ing by the students within the organization
For their issue released Monday, April 4, 2011, the Every Three Weekly ran three pages and one back page of campaign material for Karlos Marks, including information on his platform as well as a detailed chart comparing him to his opponents stances on the wage system, civil rights, suffrage, and yogurt. The paper featured a full back page that showed Karlos along with his popular slogan: "I stand for several things". Days before the polls opened online, the editors of the newspaper made an announcement via Facebook that Joseph Stallone had since dropped from the ticket, due to conflicting interests between the candidates (as well as the need for the write-in signatures to all be exactly matching if the votes are to count).
The final elections results were somewhat astounding for the fake candidate, and both the front-running MForward party and the Every Three Weekly were astonished at the success of the candidate. Coming in a shocking 2nd place finish with 520 votes cast, the write-in of "Karlos Marks" was only the tip of the iceberg for the E3W, as numerous misspellings—including "Carlos Marks", "Karlos Marx", "Carlos Marx", "Karl Marx", "Karlos Marks and Joseph Stallone", "Carol Marques"--all received sizable voting blocks as well, and while they couldn't officially be attributed to the tally for Karlos, the newspaper took this as a win too. Along with this, the newspaper found it especially shocking that they outperformed the Defend Affirmation Action Party.
Along with this impressive 2nd place finish in the main election, several complementary elections also found success for Karlos Marks. Karlos Marks received enough votes to be placed on the esteemed boards for the Business School, the Rackham Graduate School, the College of Pharmacy, as well as a first-place finish within the School of Public Health. However, since all of these organizations had rules stipulating that the candidate be an actual person and not a made-up entity, Karlos Marks had to surrender his wins to the bourgeoisie. Furthermore, Karlos Marks received a seat
Seat
A seat is place to sit, often referring to the area one sits upon as opposed to other elements like armrests.- Types of seat :The following are examples of different kinds of seat:* Airline seat, for passengers in an aircraft...
on the DPS (Department of Public Safety) Oversight Board, a branch of the University's own policing service. Since this particular position didn't originally have a rule in place banning fictional candidates from taking office, the original refusal to seat Karlos Marks in his rightful seat was contested, but eventually it was deemed not worth the fight and thus Karlos Marks again had to forfeit a seat he rightfully earned.
Reaction to the wins by a fake candidate on campus were swift and mostly jovial. Students, most of whom knew little and cared even less about student government, felt that this candidate spoke for them more or less in regards to their frustration on the inabilities of the MSA organization to get much accomplished. Since the student government could neither trump the University President, nor the Board of Regents, nor any Trustees, the inaction by the organization beyond minor accomplishments spoke volumes to the degree of how Marks acted as a social commentary for the campus mood.
Controversies
The Michigan Every Three Weekly has seen its far share of the public scorn in recent years, due to the subjects which the E3W chooses to lampoonParody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
.
A prominent event of this nature came when the paper spoofed a protest by Native American students over a campus organization called the "Michagamua Society" where the students occupied the Michagamua office for several weeks. The paper joked that a settlement between the organization and the protestors was reached by renaming the Michagamua office "Big Chief Win'um Casino." A prominent Cherokee
Cherokee
The Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
chief named Patrick Myers organized a successful protest with other members of his tribe by famously protesting the article on horseback while threatening all writers with a crossbow. Eventually the E3W redacted the article. Despite this, one of the paper's mottos is that if it is not being threatened by litigation at least once a semester, then it is not doing its job.
In 2005, following the printing of a story about student athletes headlined “Phelps To Major In Pussy", Executive Associate Athletic Director Michael Stevenson said he felt obligated to approach the Every Three Weekly publication and the UAC executive board, which controls the newspaper’s funding. Stevenson was quoted as saying, “I think that that kind of satire is unbecoming to any student at the University,” Stevenson said. “It adds nothing to our campus community to have that kind of discussion.” UAC President Mark Hindelang, however, had no plans to forcefully censor the Every Three Weekly, citing U.S. Supreme Court precedent.
As found by the 1969 U.S. Supreme Court case "Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District" and the 2001 U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit case "Kincaid v. Gibson", public schools cannot censor a student publication, reduce its funding or discipline its editors for the purpose of controlling content.
Again, the publication found controversy in 2007. When the highly esteemed Ross School of Business
Ross School of Business
The Stephen M. Ross School of Business is the business school of the University of Michigan. Numerous publications have ranked the Ross School of Business' Bachelor of Business Administration , Master of Business Administration and Executive Education programs among the top in the country and the...
at the University of Michigan sought to silence the Michigan Every Three Weekly's satirical stories about their own students, the back-and-forth emails between University officials leaked to the staff of the Every Three Weekly. This emails were likely obtained via illegal tampering. Among the emails included one citing several black students who were offended by a fake front front-page story on Proposal 2 in the magazine's November issue headlined "White Students with Black-Sounding Names Rejoice at Passage of Proposal 2." The Business School succeeded in removing all publications distributed within their own grounds, but this was halted when it was pointed out that any school paper can be handed out on campus without restriction. In the end, a spokesperson for the Every Three Weekly apologized to the Business School for the situation and no further actions were taken against the paper.
Among others include the recent flare-up involving the local chapter of the Alpha Delta Phi
Alpha Delta Phi
Alpha Delta Phi is a Greek-letter social college fraternity and the fourth-oldest continuous Greek-letter fraternity in the United States and Canada. Alpha Delta Phi was founded on October 29, 1832 by Samuel Eells at Hamilton College and includes former U.S. Presidents, Chief Justices of the U.S....
fraternity, located nearby on State Street. After being clearly acknowledged in an article mocking the unhealthy living standards of their house, the fraternity claimed libel against the paper and sought to have the paper apologize for its intention. As a result of this, now all school references must be done with anonymity or must involve school figures that have entered the public domain (i.e. President Mary Sue Coleman).
Also, in the wake of the departure of beloved Professor Ralph Williams in Spring 2009, the Every Three Weekly had an article parodying his departure. The E3W printed their issue with the parodying story but mistakenly chose a photo used and owned by the Michigan Daily, one of Ralph Williams accepting flowers in class. The owner of the photo claimed infringement and stated the paper neither asked nor was granted permission to use said photo. In response, the E3W posted a public apology that can be seen on their website.
In the final issue of the Fall 2010 semester, the paper ran a story entitled, "Mall Santa Tells Child Exactly What He Wants For Christmas", a satirical piece highlighting a fictional mall Santa that had pedophiliac tendencies. While no actual expletives or direct references were used, the newspaper was met with resistance, criticism, and claims to copyright/child-rights infringement from the local mall in Ann Arbor: Briarwood Mall
Briarwood Mall
Briarwood Mall is a shopping mall in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. The mall's four anchor stores are Macy's, JCPenney, Sears, and Von Maur. Surrounded by office and other development, the mall anchors the southern Ann Arbor commercial area around Eisenhower Boulevard and I-94. It serves as...
. This was because the paper mistakenly included the mall's name in the article, which goes against the paper's policy of not using local businesses in name. A quick Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
search with the keywords "briarwood", "mall", and "santa" allowed for the E3W's article to appear as high as the third result (most likely due to the paper's connection with the University of Michigan and its ranking on Google). It is believed by the staff of the paper that this probably confused some local citizens interested in merely looking up the real, non-fictional Santa Claus, but were instead led to an article lampooning Santa. After a few tense exchanges between the paper and the Briarwood Mall, to which University officials reluctantly had to get involved to defend the paper, it was decided to keep the article online but to merely remove any references to the mall. The mall has yet to apologize for its own actions, however, as some of their actions border-lined on unfounded defamation toward the paper.
Other
Michigan Union
The Michigan Union is a student union at the University of Michigan. It is located at the intersection of South State Street and South University Avenue in Ann Arbor, Michigan....
, the paper has seen extensive changes in recent years brought on by public polling.
The staff, which includes writers, layout editors, and artists, occupy the 4th floor UAC office of the Michigan Union. The office serves as the staff's main think tank, as well as housing many posters from past UAC events.