As is tradition for the University of Rochester Campus Times, I’m going to take advantage of this Spring’s first print edition to introduce myself and to update all of you on our goals for this coming semester.
First and foremost, our primary goal is always to offer our readers a source for accurate and well-reported information. Our management team, no matter who is a part of it, is always working to meet that goal, week after week, production after production. Given how much goes into creating a sound newspaper, and the unfortunately finite amount of hours in the week, each successive team has worked to meet that goal from different angles. This semester, as our angle, this management team will work to increase recruitment, because a larger, more diverse body of writers will inevitably lead to a wider range of topics, viewpoints, and coverage.
The first venue to start progress? The Spring Activities Fair. Though we were mildly thwarted by our placement in the back of the GAC, some of our readers hopefully heard our calling out to passing students, asking them to check out our crosswords, grab a branded pen, listen to our spiel, and overall consider becoming a part of the CT. The most common response from passing students was something along the lines of “you don’t want me, I can’t write.” As all of our editors responded then, and as I’ll relay to you now, there is absolutely no such thing. If you want to write for us, do not let any preconceived notions of ability level stop you. We offer journalism trainings ranging from the art of the interview to crafting opinions, and can pair you with a more experienced writer to help.
Even if “I can’t write” is really code for “I don’t like writing,” a newspaper involves much more than just writing articles. We always need photographers, illustrators, editors, people to help with layout, finances, or managing advertisements. Our newspaper is better with more contributors, and not to steal Uncle Sam’s classic saying, but we want you.
For those who’d rather stick with being readers — and don’t get me wrong, we appreciate you very much — more contributors will greatly improve your reading experience. While our current writers and editors do everything they can to minimize bias (each article is looked at by at least four different people), authors generally write about topics that interest them. More authors mean a wider range of interests, and therefore a wider range of topics of articles for our readers to consume.
Obviously, increasing our recruitment efforts isn’t all we’re trying to do. Our website can always use improvement, the production process can always be further optimized, and our training for both new and experienced writers can always be more comprehensive. I’m looking forward to continuing the efforts to produce a newspaper that serves as an accurate source of information for our community. Our team will do all we can to achieve that goal.
