EDITORIAL: Bad news and good news
After publishing a few stories that have received similar feedback, we wanted to address concerns presented by our readers about our coverage.
In our story about tickets issued by Parking Services and on-campus demonstrations by the Student Government Association, some commenters claimed Central Michigan Life has an agenda to promote certain topics.
This is unequivocally false.
We don’t write for the administration, faculty members, parents or alumni. Central Michigan Life is student media. We have editorial independence from the university. We just report on what is happening on campus and in Mount Pleasant.
Our job is to give our audience the facts. It is the reader's job to digest that information and form opinions and conclusions.
News isn't positive or negative. It just is.
However, no matter how hard we try it's unlikely that we will escape the public image of negativism. That's because newspapers are the messenger for both good and bad in our world and on any given day, stories may reflect what the reading public considers bad news.
Often we are told that we don't print anything positive about the university, only to be told the next day that we are being too trusting.
It's human nature to remember the negative. Even as we may tend to forward positive material via social media, our news-reading habits may still prioritize negative information. There is a growing body of evidence illustrating the tendency to prioritize negative over positive news content.
We want to make it clear that our goal is not to promote or put down organizations on campus, but when students are critical it is our responsibility to bring those concerns to those in authority. Otherwise, these voices would never be heard.
None of our reporting is conceived or carried out with a requirement of where it will end up.
Based on feedback, we continue coverage or move on to a new topic based on what the readers are talking about. If there are valid questions being asked by students, it is the responsibility of their on-campus newspaper to get them answered.
There is absolutely no other voice on the campus of Central Michigan University that does the same.
Part of our job is to gauge how relevant issues are and decide what issues people will want to read about.
You, as a reader, play a crucial role in student media and the reporting of issues and exchange of ideas on campus.
So please, keep your feedback coming.
