The job of a newspaper is to serve as a checks and balances system and properly inform its community.
In the case of The DePauw, we believe it is our duty, as a student publication, to report news that is simultaneously informative and relevant to students and faculty. Not only do we strive to be fair in our news reporting, but we also want our reporting process to be as transparent to the DePauw community as possible.
In other words, we're on your side, and in the name of being accessible and honest, we'd like to inform you of our production process.
Every Sunday and Wednesday, at 4 p.m., 11 editors along with reporters, photographers and designers hold story board meeting in the comfort of our newsroom. These meetings are open to the entire student body, and we always encourage new faces to join us in our story-pitching dialogue. After discussing potential stories, the writers, editors and photographers claim the assignments that interest them. The student journalists are taught to report both basic and controversial stories without a slant or bias.
After all the stories are assigned, so are deadlines. Deadline night is every Monday and every Thursday evening. Editorial board retreats to the editor-in-chief's office to editorialize on a recent event, pressing issue or opinion. Page editors scrutinize and edit articles and every photo is reformatted. A team of designers arrives on our notorious deadline nights to place the content, along with several advertisements (often also designed by students) on the virtual pages.
Once The DePauw flourishes into an electronic version of itself, usually sometime around 1 AM, we email it to the folks over at The Banner Graphic. The local Greencastle newspaper then produces the beloved print edition, which is to be picked up by a delivery person no later than 9 a.m. on Tuesdays and Fridays. A student (or series of students) delivers around 800 copies of the publication to buildings all over campus, where other students will usually find it after 10 a.m. classes.
This organization is not a clique. In fact, our existence depends on the variety, diversity and passion of student voices. We offer a platform for students to be heard. We monitor on the authority of the administration. We exercise our right to the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This is what we do, and we invite you to join us.