Last night, representatives of the Emerald’s editorial staff had a productive conversation with our Board of Directors for the first time in weeks, if not far longer. Together, we agreed to move forward in mediated discussions on the terms of a publisher’s contract.
Beginning Monday we will resume regular publication in an attempt toavoid further diminishing the Emerald’s financial well-being and to perform the vital function we serve in the campus community.
We are humbled and more than a little surprised by the outpouring of support we have received from our readers. It certainly occurred to us that Wednesday’s edition could have been met with deafening indifference.
We want you to know that leaving our jobs was not easy, that we love this newspaper and what it stands for, and that we will not waver in our commitment to the values you have overwhelmingly supported.
In deciding to strike, we risked more than our jobs. We risked the future of the organization itself, including the jobs of our professional staff and, far worse, the jobs of other students in the advertising and creative services departments. These students, many of whom do not have daily contact with our newsroom staff, did not deserve to be put in such a bind.
We profoundly appreciate the work these departments do for us and for our readers. Without the commitment and daily hard work of these students, the Emerald would not be possible. Today’s edition includes letters from students in the advertising department that were written before newsroom negotiations with the board. They are printed here because their voices deserve to be heard as much as anybody’s and because we regret that we caused so much grief for those who did nothing to deserve it.
We hope they – and you -understand that we did what we did because we believe in editorial independence of student newspapers, and we sincerely believed that ours was in imminent jeopardy. While we are not convinced that all threats to student control of this newsroom have disappeared, some progress has been made and the April 1 deadline of a publisher starting has become irrelevant.
We believe we are not losing ground by returning to work and producing a full newspaper on Monday. You have shown the Board of Directors that this campus will accept nothing less than student control of this newsroom. We have shown the board the ability of this editorial team to thrive in a new media environment where a day’s worth of blog hits equaled approximately 15 times the number our Web site receives for its biggest news story on any given day.
And we did that without a grown-up innovation guru holding our hands.
Other college newspapers and journalists all over the country have shown our board that editorial independence matters. Thanks to outcry from all corners, we have finally, truly communicated our fundamental concerns to the board.
It is on this point of contention with the board – the obvious conflict presented by having a publisher work for the journalism school – that we believe public opinion was solidified with a statement far more powerful than we could ever have made. In exercising freedoms that the tenets of objective journalism and mainstream media will never allow, the Oregon Commentator
often goes too far. But it is a sad day when a respected journalism professor, the dean of the journalism school and a prospective publisher who prides himself on editorial integrity are upstaged by 20-year-olds whose blog attempts to justify date rape.
The Commentator is incendiary, crass and absolutely necessary to dialogue on this campus. Just as we were compelled to hold our board accountable, we are aware the writers of the Commentator are often the people holding us accountable. For their scrutiny
and support, we offer them our sincerest gratitude.
The newsroom of the Oregon Daily Emerald still harbors legitimate concerns about the future of this organization and the supervisory role of a professional publisher over our student editor in chief. We will not abandon that concern. But we believe it is in the best interest of both the company as a whole and all of our readers to move forward while these serious discussions take place.
We thank you for your continued support and hope you will still be reading our blogs on Monday.