Chancellor James Oblinger boasted about N.C. State’s accomplishments and its future Thursday during his State of N.C. State address. But why not? When things are happening around campus, people must know.
So in honor of the chancellor’s speech, I thought it was time to give the readers an update on Technician’s goals this year and what you can expect from us for the next semester-and-a-half.
We believe we’ve accomplished some pretty major goals already. We have reestablished the “Focused” page and have been able to cover heated campus issues through it.
Your opinions rang through those pages, as guest columnists and forum letters filled the Viewpoint section.
Our Web presence has grown by leaps and bounds this semester, thanks to your message board posts and your discussion of the issues you feel passionate about.
Blogs and multimedia slideshows will continue, being picked up again next weekend as we send editors to Tallahassee, Fla. to document the football game.
The news team has begun a beat system and we are looking forward to the in-depth coverage that we can provide.
But if the Technician is going to keep its credibility with the readers, we must do what we hope others around campus would do: admit mistakes.
Mistakes are inevitable at a daily newspaper, and we haven’t held back. We’ve made our fair share.
From our bad printing job of Raven Solomon’s column speaking out against the LGBT Center in our first Focused, to our use of “monkey-suited” SG officials — which people interpreted much differently than we had intended, and to our quoting of the complete wrong source in an article on the Student Life Master Plan.
Yes we’ve made mistakes, and we’ve learned from them. We talked them over the next day, figured out where we went wrong and vowed to fix them next time.
But the reason we caught, and learned from, these mistakes was because you reported them to us.
We do our best to cover the entire campus, but nobody knows the material like the actual sources: you.
That’s why we appreciate you letting us know when we mess up.
So as we dive through the rest of the fall semester, through major issues such as fees, student conduct standards, new student centers and a dismal football season, let us know how we’re doing.
We appreciate the flow of forum letters and message board posts we get everyday. And we’ll continue work on our accuracy so that we may gain credibility with our readers.
What do you think the State of the Technician is? E-mail and tell Josh and the rest of the staff at viewpoint@technicianonline.com.
