Editorial: Don’t blame the messenger for news

Staff Editorial

Without fail, The Daily Eastern News writes these words every year – we are not the university’s public relations machine.

News, whether it be good or bad, is news. If something happens around the campus or community, we report on it.

We’re not going to sugarcoat it to make it more appealing.

We’re not going to tailor our news coverage to make a group of readers happy.

If a crime happens on campus or in Charleston, we’ll report the information as it’s given to us.

And if it’s not given to us in a timely fashion, we’ll most certainly fight for it and disseminate it to you, the reader.

Whether an athletics team falls into a double-digit slump or knocks off a top-seeded opponent, we’ll be there and you’ll read about it through us.

If an athlete or other prominent figure of the Eastern or Charleston communiversity were to be arrested, we’ll be there too, with the facts.

Just as we’ll be there if someone does something positive.

We’re not giving the university a bad reputation, someone else already did.

If there’s a crime in the community, the Charleston Police Department more than likely will issue a press release that’s freely available to anyone who wants to see it.

Why don’t you blame them, too?

Making the school look good isn’t our job.

No newspaper’s job is making any person or place look good.

If it is, then the graduating seniors at The News want no part of it, and we’ll find jobs elsewhere.

Because that would be doing an incredible disservice to the community and a waste of the countless hours of learning poured into us.

We are students of course, and we love and are proud to be EIU. But we are not beholden to Eastern in the stories we report.

Yes, “Eastern” may be in our name, but it’s the community that countless students have reported on for the last 100 years.

The topics that we’ve reported on this school year, the lack of a state budget to layoffs, are indicative of the times we’re living in.

Just as not too long ago, a big continuing story was a 12-2 football team and now-Patriots quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo.

We can’t control what happens in our coverage area. We can’t control what happens to the campus community.

Eastern and the rest of the state is going through a rough 10 months; instead of directing hate towards us, do something more productive and channel your grumblings towards the source of the problem, whatever it may be.

Tell the truth and don’t be afraid – because we don’t make the news, we report it.

The daily editorial is the majority opinion of the editorial board of The Daily Eastern News