The 127th term of The Cavalier Daily ushers in new faces and new roles for our staffers. You may notice that this editorial is different from previous editorials in that it is published by an editorial board rather than the managing board. Last semester, our staff elected to establish an editorial board in an effort to further distinguish our objective coverage from our subjective content. Our hope is that the paper’s 127th term will be characterized by stricter separation between the objective and the subjective within The Cavalier Daily’s product.
Previously, the managing board published the lead editorial on behalf of the publication. In the past, the managing board found it difficult to put forth a lead editorial expressing an opinion on a controversial issue with the managing editor, who oversees all objective literary content, present at lead editorial meetings. Given that the lead editorial defends the paper’s stance on an issue, the managing board sometimes saw it necessary to remove its managing editor from lead editorial meetings, presenting a difficult situation for the managing board. Furthermore, we felt that having an editorial board composed of members solely dedicated to this work would be more effective.
To ensure that our paper adheres to normal newsroom structures, we implemented an editorial board with the executive editor at the helm, supported by our editor-in-chief and three at-large members who recuse themselves from objective literary content. We believe this makeup ensures that the voice of our paper more accurately reflects the staffers who produce it. The composition of our editorial board is diverse, with a variety of academic interests represented. Three board members come from the Opinion section and the other two have backgrounds in objective writing in the News and Focus sections.
Our vision remains largely the same as our predecessors: like the 126th managing board, we aim to serve as a platform for the student voice on Grounds; to disseminate relevant information to our readership; and to regard events, ideas and institutions around us with a critical eye. The machinery through which we do so will differ in our 127th term with the implementation of the editorial board. Like a wheel, our organization constantly rolls forward with new ideas and occasionally new structures; all the while, we find ourselves circling around to the enduring question of how we can best serve the University community.
Members of this organization occupy a unique role in journalism. They report on and express opinions about issues relevant to their own community. Their friends and classmates lead initiatives that they are tasked with covering as objectively as possible. Objective coverage of a college campus may be more difficult than objective coverage on a state or local level because our reporters work in a much smaller environment where they spend nearly all of their time. Therefore we must be particularly careful in delineating the boundary between the objective and subjective halves of our paper. Our mission to inform our readers with objective coverage persists, but the structure by which we achieve that mission evolves. We expect our establishment of an editorial board will allow us to approach objectivity in our reporting as well as possible.
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