Editor's Note: The headline, "Just Wanted to Make it Snow," ran on the front page of The Daily the day school started back up after the snow storm. It was above a picture of the snow outside and did not run on OUDaily.com

I hope The Daily doesn’t make a habit of mocking private citizens with its headlines. The Daily’s classless and unprofessional decision to run, “Just Wanted to Make it Snow” as a headline on Jan. 29 should not be repeated.

The “Just wanted to make it snow” video itself isn’t admirable. The poorly-shot video shows a girl crying hysterically over a prank gone wrong. While the entire event may make the girl question whether she actually wants to be part of a group that treats its members this way, this video not anything particularly heinous in the YouTube world. People laugh at others’ misfortune, and no article is going to stop that.

But for The Daily to co-opt one of the phrases from this unfortunate video as a headline is ridiculous. Pop culture references in headlines are often clever and interest people in stories. But making light of this girl’s misfortune is, at the very least, in poor taste, and at most, an egregious error in judgment.

One of this girl’s worst days ever has been viewed and laughed at more than 500,000 times by private citizens. It’s their right to do so. I support the right to post the video and the right to watch the video, even if my personal opinion is that it should not be posted nor viewed out of respect for the girl.

The Daily is not a private citizen. It markets itself as the University of Oklahoma’s Independent Student Voice. If this is so, then by using this phrase as a headline, The Daily has associated the entire student body with the ridicule of this girl. As a member of the student body that doesn’t favor the practice of kicking a girl while she’s down, this is a slap in my face. This is not what the newspaper should be about.

If “Just Wanted to Make It Snow” was a headline on the opinion page, I may have still taken offense. It may be good opinion writing to poke fun at elected officials and other public figures, but it is not good opinion writing to heckle private citizens. There’s simply no reason for it.

If a subject is not fit for the opinion page (as I would argue that any non-serious reference to “Just Wanted to Make it Snow” is), it is certainly unfit for any news-related section of the paper. The news should be clear, precise, accurate and free of waste. This is what they teach in the journalism college that many of the members of The Daily attend.

The only section that may have had a legitimate claim to the headline would perhaps be the L&A section, which may have run a piece on the fact that people enjoyed the YouTube clip. The Daily shouldn’t be associated with this drivel at all, but if it must be covered, it should have been mentioned in the L&A section.

Even though it may have been seen as a quick laugh at the expense of a fad, the lack of foresight on the part of The Daily distresses me. There was no reason to associate The Daily with this sort of sophomoric drivel. There is no reason for the student paper to mock the misfortune of one of the people in its readership. It is poor journalism to make laughs at the expense of private citizens, even if the insult is one step removed from the actual event.

-Stephen Carradini is a professional writing senior.