A lot of people think they know a lot about everything. A lot of people think they know a lot about how newspapers should be run and how stories should – or should not – be written.
So often at the Emerald we get calls where readers angrily explain to us a thing-or-two about how we do – or don’t do – our jobs. Which, don’t get us wrong, is perfectly fine because we like to hear feedback – positive and negative – from our readers. We also understand your need to vent if you feel something we did was unfair.
But before you make that phone call to (541) 346-5511 or march up to the third floor of the EMU, we’d like to arm you with a little information about how we actually do our jobs and the kinds of decisions that go into what we cover.
1) The first and most important distinction that readers should make about the Oregon Daily Emerald, and any other newspaper for that matter, is that commentary and opinion pieces are just that – opinions. They are not news articles. The authors are not news reporters, they are columnists. They will
be biased and they don’t have to (but often should) present both sides to every argument. Those opinion pieces on commentary pages do not necessarily reflect the views of the newspaper.
The commentary page is meant to be a forum to spark thought-provoking discussion, and the content on that page is meant to be sharp and opinionated. But that doesn’t mean those opinions spill over into our choice of news content. We strongly encourage readers to respond to columns they read in the Emerald by e-mailing a letter of no more than 250 words or guest commentary of no more than 550 words to [email protected]. You can also hand deliver it to our office on the third floor of the EMU.
2) Some people might think that a newspaper shouldn’t have an editorial board that gives out the newspaper’s official opinions. They’ll wonder how we can claim to be unbiased and yet dish out our opinions on topics that we cover. But the truth is that all newspapers have an editorial board. It’s our responsibility as a newspaper to give our honest and educated views on the topics that we know so closely. Our editorial decisions also do not have influence on our coverage. None of our members on the editorial board are staff reporters. We’ll do our best this year to be honest about who is on our editorial board, and we’ll be honest about when certain members of the board need to recuse themselves due to a conflict of interest.
3) That being said, we also try to avoid conflicts of interest. We know that college is about being involved and active, so we won’t (for the most part) limit our reporters’ outside activities. But we can guarantee you that if a reporter is involved in any type of group, they will not be reporting on it.
4) If you’re doing something interesting or are apart of a student group that wants to be covered, let us know about it. We can’t promise to cover everything that happens all the time because we’re busy college students too, but we’ll do our best.
5) We work a lot. Not to make us sound important, but the newspaper process is a long one. It starts in the morning with reporting and ends after midnight and – if we’re lucky – before 1 a.m.
6) Above all, we strive to be fair, accurate, timely and interesting.