Freaky Friday: Doily Allergen, Daily Iowan To Switch Jobs Until They Learn Something

The Doily Allergen and the Daily Iowan have always had an interesting relationship. The two student newspapers have been rivals ever since the Daily Iowan parodied the Doily Allergen’s name back at its founding in 1713, a whole 5.816 years before the University of Iowa opened its doors.

Tensions since then have cooled down or heated up opposite of the actual weather. In the summer, when the Daily Iowan goes down to its skeleton crew of whoever they can bribe with 5 cents/month and unpaid Doily writers slither back into their holes, there’s no rivalry whatsoever.

After last year, wherein the editor in chiefs of both newspapers battled it out with pool noodles on top of the abandoned bridge over the Iowa River, leading to one drowning and one non-fatal stabbing, the university has finally decided to step in.

That’s why the Doily Allergen staff and Daily Iowan staff will take over each other’s newspapers, until they learn a valuable lesson about themself and the other.

What exactly that lesson needs to be has been debated by the board of trustees for months. Some members of the board think that any lesson should count. Some think that it should be a specific lesson.

Some suggested lessons include:

• The Daily Iowan learns how to be funny; the Doily Allergen learns how to interview a real person.

• The Daily Iowan learns how to not show up at a protest they’ve been specifically asked to not come to and take photos of people who don’t want their photos taken for safety reasons; the Doily Allergen learns how to not be a nuisance to everyone in the Main Library once a week.

• The Daily Iowan learns how to start every pitch meeting by drawing a penis on a whiteboard; the Doily Allergen learns how to focus for more than 30 seconds at a time.

We decided to ask writers for both newspapers what they thought of the switch. One writer from the Daily Iowan answered, “I’m excited to actually have fun for once in my writing career. It’s so easy to get caught up in the dreariness of the EPB or the sheer boredom that Daily Iowan pitch meetings are, I think this will be a good break for me.”

A writer from the Doily Allergen told us, “I look forward to the switch. I expected the proposed lessons to be more about not stabbing each other with pool noodles, but that would be unnecessary, as we here at the Allergen promise it will never happen again.”