The paper you hold in your hands is under new management.
In fact, due to the student-run nature of the Gauntlet, we come under new management every year as our staff of volunteer writers, artists and photographers move up through the ranks and earn year-long positions on our editorial board. Though the self-indulgent nature of a first-person editorial is not lost on me, I feel compelled to lay out for you, our readers, exactly what this editorial board is planning to do with the Gauntlet this year.
If you’ve read us before, then hopefully the first thing you noticed with the paper in your hands is the new look. With the gracious help of our graphic artist Ken Clarke, we have pulled off over the summer what previous editorial boards have only talked about: a redesign of the visual elements we use in each issue. We’re all excited about it–as newspaper nerds tend to be–and we hope you like it too. However, our redesign goes beyond attempts at slicking up our publication. We are hoping it will be one of a number of changes aimed at making us more relevant to you.
We are launching new features in print and online to accommodate a simple fact: Yes, we are your undergrad weekly, but we’re also the only independent paper in the U of C community. And we’d like to do all we can to fulfill that role. Expect continued critical reporting of U of C news, but look for new things too: faculty columns, increased coverage of U of C arts and a renewed Gauntlet presence on campus with sponsored events, contests and learning workshops, to name a few. In March the Gauntlet, CJSW and NUTV will also be hosting the first Trimedia journalism conference since 2001.
Mistakes have been made in the past, and this year will be no different. But our mistakes are an integral part of what the Gauntlet exists for. Our “two-fold mandate” is to put out a weekly paper for the U of C community, and to train interested students in the craft of print journalism. We learn from our mistakes, we don’t hide from them.
If you’re picking this paper up for the first time, I welcome you. If you’re an old reader, or an old critic, I hope you give this editorial board a chance.
If you like what you see, tell us. If you don’t, tell us that too. Or better yet, come up to MSC room 319 and fill out a volunteer form. Whether you’re an aspiring investigative reporter, or just a bored student looking for something to read before class, we can help. Either way, pick us up.
–Chris Beauchamp,
Editor-in-chief