The University of Richmond Collegian 11/03/94

Staff Editorial

by Jeffrey Carl, Opinion Editor

What We Think

an Opinion from the Collegian Staff

“But Seriously, Folks”

It seems that The Collegian has become something of a center of controversy lately. Each week we are faced with a small plethora of politely enraged readers (or ex-readers) claiming that The Collegian has overstepped its bounds or is jaundiced/prejudiced or is an emissary of Satan in some major aspect.

It is not the goal of The Collegian to be a scandal sheet or hotbed of radicalism, nor is it the goal of The Collegian to appear to be the scion of the school’s perceived conservative status quo.

It is the goal of The Collegian to provide to the student body – whence The Collegian’s writers come from – an informative, entertaining sampling of the news, lifestyles, activities and opinions that circulate through this campus and beyond. We make mistakes and we get biased and we say outrageous things. And we’re proud of the job we do. The Collegian’s staff has never laid claim to perfection, although we do think we’re pretty good.

Journalists – not just student journalists here, but real-life Snickers-eating journalists everywhere – are expected to be flawless observers and level-headed commentators. Truth be known, we’re not any smarter or wiser than anybody else.

Case in point: many objections and negative reactions have lately been raised against items appearing in the paper’s Opinion section. The Opinion section of the newspaper is like a separate journal, all in and of itself. It is not “news” in any farfetched sense of the word. Please keep in mind that what is contained therein is what is promised – opinions. If you don’t like what you read, don’t read it. If you don’t think that what is intended to be funny is funny, don’t laugh. But don’t get your feathers ruffled.

We here at The Collegian take our jobs seriously – but we generally try not to take ourselves too seriously, and therein, we think, lies our true style and merit.

It is your right, as a reader, to agree or disagree with anything said in these pages, and to tell us about it. The Collegian needs to hear what it is doing wrong just as much as what it is doing right. But remember that the decisions of the paper’s staff are its own, fallible though it is, and all this is done with malice toward none. And really – it’s not that serious.