Suffolk’s quest for a new president made headlines again Tuesday with an article in the Boston Herald that said Vice President of External Affairs John Nucci and UMASS Lowell Chancellor Martin Meehan were fighting each other for the job in a “bruising behind-the-scenes battle.” As the Journal pointed out in an article responding to the Herald’s report, this is not only a sensationalized account of the search for a new president, but completely untrue. Meehan told the Herald that he is dedicated to his post at UMASS and Nucci sent the Administrative Council an email unequivocally denouncing his interest in the job. The Herald based its report on the hearsay of unidentified “insiders,” raising questions on the credibility of the Herald’s source. After reading the article, we at the Journal scratched our heads and asked ourselves “what is the point of this article?” It added nothing new to the ongoing drama surrounding the president’s succession highlighted in hard-hitting pieces by the Boston Globe. Those articles had merit to them and raised questions about President Sargent’s exorbitant salary and the Board of Trustee’s decision to expand his contract by two years. They called the school out on its questionable decisions; something that only a widely read publication seems capable of doing. The Herald’s story, in typical fashion, read like a gossip column. Unless there is pertinent information to unveil, don’t print it. The story did however highlight one area of concern on the school’s plan to replace Sargent in 2013. The succession planning committee, formed in January, is not fielding candidates, but “finding the qualities the school should be looking for in its next leader,” according to the Herald. Really? You need a committee to discover leadership qualities? When the succession committee was formed, it was implied that its purpose was to search for a new president and that the contract was extended because the search would take that long. It seems that the school is dragging its feet on picking a new president—one detail brought to our attention in otherwise uninformative waste of print.