It’s so unfair. The sun is shining in the office windows this afternoon, and I can’t help wondering why. Where was it last week? Why don’t we have another week off? I need more spring break.
But we’re back, and as we prepare to cover two extensive news events — war in Iraq and ASUO elections — I thought I should tell you what we’re doing and why.
Our war coverage, at least as far as national news goes, will be light. We don’t have the space to run six or seven wire stories every day, so we will generally have only one update on the front page. When we run other wire, we will try to cover different domestic and world issues. While war is important, it can be dangerous for the public to ignore the other things government is doing.
We will try to bring other sides of the war story home, by localizing different issues that aren’t receiving as much coverage in other media. Please call or e-mail us with story ideas, names of loved ones sent to battle and news tips about local events.
And then we have the ASUO elections. While it doesn’t have the gravity of war, electing student leaders is important. The ASUO Executive is students’ voice and representation at the local, state and federal levels. Students should be sure these folks represent their interests and opinions.
The ASUO Student Senate is equally important, if not more so. The finance senators, in particular, are responsible for spending millions of dollars in student incidental fees. Students must be informed about the know-how and agenda of these candidates.
With the importance of student senators in mind, our elections coverage this year is a bit different than in the past. Instead of only covering the Executive race, we are writing stories for every contested race — 18 in all — and with the primary election beginning April 9, we have only seven publishing days in which to do it. This means a flurry of stories, beginning today.
Through April 7, on the front page we will print two candidate stories every day. We have three Executive stories, each of them looking at two candidate tickets in the race. Those run today, Tuesday and Wednesday. We have eight finance senator stories and one At-Large Programs Finance Committee story, each of them looking at all the candidates in a single race (for Senate Seat 1 or Senate Seat 2, etc.). Those run one per day today, Tuesday and Wednesday, and then two per day through April 7.
On April 8, we will have a special section inside the paper for the remaining five senate races, the Associated Students Presidential Advisory Council Race, the At-Large EMU Board races and the ballot measures.
While all of these stories are based on interviews with the candidates, the entire transcripts of the interviews will not fit in the paper. They will, however, be available online, linked from the candidate stories.
The elections begin April 9, and on that day the editorial board will devote the entire Commentary section to the Emerald’s endorsements. We will be considering the transcripts of interviews as well as campaign materials. Feel free to drop off any materials at the office to my attention.
Which brings me to my final item: letters in support of candidates. For space reasons, we have some guidelines. Any letters endorsing a specific person are limited to 200 words or less, and they must be received by 4 p.m. Friday or they will not be able to run. Please include a phone number and e-mail for verification.
That’s our plan; we’ll keep you informed.