by Mahrya Draheim

An October 8 University of Washington College Republicans bake sale (charging whites a dollar per cookie and African Americans 30 cents per cookie to protest affirmative action) pissed off students. One football player attempted to pull down the College Republicans' tent, ripping banners. KING 5's camera crews were there, and a crowd of 200 students was there, but the UW's student paper, the Daily, wasn't.

In a scanty article two days after the event, the Daily reported the school's official reaction. It didn't mention the College Republicans' damaged property. One campus publication did manage to get the story: A reporter for the conservative UW newspaper Right Turn was there for the whole event, and is writing an alternative to what he sees as the Daily's liberal bias for this week's issue.

"The Daily's article kept saying how people's feelings were hurt and the Republicans should have been more sensitive," says Right Turn associate editor and College Republicans political chair Aaron Schwitters. "That completely misses the point." The point, explains Schwitters, is that the bake sale was attacked.

The UW's prominent liberalism led to Right Turn's birth nearly five years ago. Since then, Right Turn has grown from a sporadic pamphlet to a weekly newspaper. Staffers Adam Faber and Schwitters, two decidedly preppy young conservatives, spend their Sundays cranking out the paper.

Their cramped space, over a Fremont lingerie shop, bears the marks of any DIY publication--a few dinosaur computers squeezed in an attic room, and eight staff members hurrying to write, edit, and lay out stories.

For a fringe paper, Right Turn's 12-page layout is clean and impressive. There is, of course, a decidedly conservative bias. A recent issue, for example, is critical of a visiting Palestinian activist, but gives nothing but praise to an Israeli speaker. Faber doesn't see conservative bias as problematic. "I don't know if I think unbiased reporting is possible," he says. "We definitely have a distinct opinion of all the news we cover. Everybody does."