COLUMN: Let yourself be heard
It's a new semester. A new season, a new set of classes, a new leaf to turn.
As Central Michigan Life's new Voices Editor, I view spring as a fresh opportunity to define the way we interact with you, the
readers.
At its best, a school newspaper is a professional and dynamic way to keep students informed and involved when it comes to the happenings of their institution. At worst, it's a collection of poorly-strung-together facts that makes for the perfect coaster or superb kindling.
Whatever CM Life is, it is nothing without the students who read it. Working at the paper since 2012, I've seen its pages elicit both praise and persecution from the student body. Reactions both good and bad are what we use to gauge how close we've come to hitting the mark in terms of news judgment.
Are we giving you the best form of the story? Are we informing you? Are we inciting care or concern?
The beauty of these questions is that each of you has a unique answer to them, and we want to hear it.
In a way, opinions are the reason we exist as a school newspaper. We gather, write, edit, plan and consume massive amounts of caffeine all in the hopes of producing something that will cause you to form an opinion about the world, or university, around you.
Do you wish more people knew about the new research or project you and your classmates are doing? Feel you should have gotten more out of a class for what you paid for it? Want to see more attention given to a certain department, college or registered student organization?
How will those in charge of such issues know what you want unless you let yourself be heard? Short of marching into their office, submitting a column or letter to the editor speaking to the things you truly care about is one of the best ways to let those in charge know what students at this university think of how they're doing their jobs.
The same is true when it comes to how you think we're doing our job as your informers.
Say what you will about CM Life...actually, that's it. Say what you will. The good, the bad, the ugly. We'll welcome it with open arms and present it to your peers in a way that hopefully lets the conversation continue far beyond the confines of a comment box or tweet.
You can contribute to this conversation by emailing me at voices@cm-life.com.
