Welcome new and returning students, faculty and staff, Meadville residents and Allegheny alumni to the 2024-25 school year and a new year of “The Campus.” We’re excited to be back reporting for the Allegheny community, making this paper the best it can be.
To start the year off right, we’d like to explain how we operate and why. We’d also like to address the major changes made to this year’s paper and how you can make your voice heard as a writer or simply as a reader. Let’s dive in.
To start with the obvious: the paper is now six pages instead of eight. This newspaper has taken many different forms over its nearly 150-year tenure, and this year is no exception to that change. You will notice that we no longer have a Sports section and that the Science/International section will be folded into the Features section. This is due to several reasons, one being that this year’s current staff is smaller than last year’s. Additionally, several skilled seniors who were heavily involved with the paper graduated.. Included in that list was our Sports Editor — and sole sports writer — Kyle Chandler, ’24.
We point this out to illustrate the fact that in order to showcase the skills of our staff, we need a smaller paper, at least for now. It’s not to say that the paper will never return to eight pages, or that sports coverage won’t make its way into this year’s paper — in fact, we intend to include sports coverage when we can, even if the format of that coverage looks different. If you’d like to see more extensive coverage, we encourage you to be a part of the work you want to see.
This paper is, and has always been, a reflection of the students who run it. We are busy, like you. We have varied interests, priorities and specializations within the staff. Six pages is what will best suit this staff’s abilities and deliver the best possible content to our audience at the same rate we have in the past.
Regardless of the shape this paper takes, our mission remains steadfast: To inform the Allegheny community, honestly and accurately. There is no angle to truthful reporting. Since it is not possible to cover every event and development on this campus, we do have to make decisions about which stories are top priorities or which stories will impact the greatest number of readers. There is absolutely journalistic discretion in what we choose to cover, though we aim to be considerate in which stories we pursue.
While some readers may take issue with a lack of coverage, others may take issue with too much coverage. Let us be clear in saying that what happens at public events is inherently public, and we as an organization are interested in covering any and all events that affect the campus community and beyond. Once again, there is no angle to truthful reporting. Your actions as leaders on this campus reflect themselves, and our choices will reflect on us.
We don’t hold ourselves above criticism, however. Reporting the news will always come with accountability, just as any opinion column worth writing ought to have a counterargument. We do our best to avoid implicit biases and conflicts of interest by working as a team of reporters as well as a team of editors, making sure that our opinions do not interfere with reporting the facts of a story. Our Code of Ethics can be found posted on our newsroom door, and we welcome open dialogue about journalistic integrity.
All this being said, there are productive ways to have your voice heard by us at The Campus. Our contributing writers’ meetings will continue to take place in the Henderson Campus Center room 303 at 8 p.m. on Monday nights. Come pitch your story ideas or take a story of your own. No experience is necessary. If you’ve been interested in journalism or writing before, it doesn’t hurt to try.
You can email us at [email protected] or reach out to Editor-in-Chief Sam Heilmann, ’26, directly at [email protected] with concerns or suggestions. If you’d like to respond to something written in a recent edition, the information for our letter-to-the-editor process can be found at our website, alleghenycampus.com.
We also plan on hosting another open house this year where you can drop in to look behind the scenes at the paper coming together. Or, stop by a listening session we plan to host, where you can give us feedback, suggestions, complaints — you name it. We also plan to regularly post on our social media with tips for how to read a newspaper, which is a skill that is more important than ever. Stay tuned to our Instagram page — @ac_campus — and print editions for forthcoming details on all these projects and events.
Above all other goals, we aim to tell the truth. Know, though, that we do not operate for or against any institution, and that we serve our readers first and foremost. We are here to share your stories and to keep you informed, plain and simple.
Thank you for your readership and your continued support of this paper. We wouldn’t be who we are without our audience, without Allegheny, without you.