EMILY TIMMERMAN
LEE MCKINSTRY
The Wooster Voice is an entirely student-run publication, and has been an open forum and ready resource for this campus’ student body since 1883. The articles and editorials printed in this publication’s pages are written with a specific intent to both inform our student body and give voice to even its most unpopular opinions. The editorial board takes great pride in this task, and believes that we are indebted above all to the undergraduates who make this school exceptional. This is their newspaper, created and edited to give them a voice. Maybe all of this goes without saying. At least, we hoped it does. But maybe not. Over the course of the past few years, we’ve heard from a number of people who’ve said they dismissed the Voice because they believed it operated under the control of this campus’ administration. We’ve heard everything from “The President approves the articles” to “they can’t cover certain stories if they’ll be critical of the administration” to “they’re paid by the administration.” All of these claims are untrue and misguided. It is beyond disappointing to hear that the Voice disregarded as a viable source of news and opinion because it is a supposed “puppet of the administration.” It is frustrating for the staff that works, completely independently of outside influences, to put this paper out each week. With that said, the Voice respects our campus’ administration and all of the incredible cooperation they provide us with when we ask for interviews or information for the articles that we print. We do collaborate with the administration on stories frequently, and then write to inform the campus of larger decisions being made within the offices of Galpin. We hope that members of Wooster’s governing bodies view the Voice as a reliable and conscientious resource, and that the student opinions they encounter within its pages serve as a ready and helpful glimpse into student life. Furthermore, we encourage any interested staff, faculty, students and administration members to submit editorials or letters to the editor about any campus issues they’d like to address, or any complaints they have about our content. We do not, however, work for them. We are a volunteer-based staff that is entirely unpaid. We are students, and we serve students’ interests first. Like all major newspapers, the Voice receives its funding from an outside source, in our case, from Campus Council. Regardless of this monetary connection to the larger administration of the College, the content each week is subject to absolutely no prior review. No one sees the content of the issue, aside from the editorial staff, before the issue is distributed on Friday. There is no interference, editing or censoring done either by members of the administration or by the staff to better the reputation of the administration. If content seems scripted, it’s entirely unintentional. Ethically, any involvement from anyone beyond the staff regarding content would be completely inappropriate, and would undermine the publications very intention. We feel its important to address this concern, because students’ perception of any such relationship compromises our integrity, and might discourage students from contributing to or reading the Voice. This editorial is not an attack on the administration. It’s mean to combat the misinformation that has been perpetuated lately. If you feel that the content in a particular issue or article is unfairly biased, let us know. We are always receptive to constructive feedback. We are a staff of fourteen, trying to represent a community of almost two thousand students, so naturally we have our own predispositions to particular niches of student life. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t want to hear from and represent the ideas of every student. One of the benefits of being such a small school is that not only can we all have individual opinions, we can also voice them, and the newspaper is the perfect platform for that conversation. At the end of the day it is the purpose of this paper to represent the student’s opinions, not to serve to some administrative agenda, or to propagate their mission.