The Maneater bills itself as “The Student Voice of MU.” This is a legacy we have inherited from the 62 years of Maneaters before us, but it’s a title we must consistently work to earn. And we don’t feel everything we’ve done in the past has helped us earn that title.
We remain committed to our objectives of covering campus fairly, holding student government accountable and telling the stories of people on campus with stories to tell. However, as we get wrapped up in the day-to-day functioning of our newspaper, our coverage has not always reflected our values.
As we watch the one-year anniversaries of major campus milestones come and go, we’re prompted to consider our role in campus conversations about race. We are not the only newsroom in the country considering these issues — editors across the country are also discussing their role and the role of advocacy in journalism.
We acknowledge that our Editorial Board is mostly white. This stems from a staff of writers that is not particularly diverse because our editors are generally hired from our pool of writers. It’s a cycle that we need to break. In terms of our coverage, our missteps are primarily a build-up of small blunders, large failures of judgment and a sometimes-flawed approach to coverage. We realize that in many instances, The Maneater has principally covered minority communities when there is a perceived “problem,” rather than telling all their stories. We need to make sure we are not harming the communities we cover.
We know we are imperfect, and we want to address it. To this end, we are redeclaring our commitment to existing policies and announcing a new editorial position.
For The Maneater to be the student voice, we also have to listen. We are bolstering our audience engagement and outreach. Our goal is to facilitate more reader feedback and participation. We will continue to require every writer to verify the accuracy of the quotes they gather, whether they check via a recording, by email or in person. As always, if we get something wrong, we’ll correct it. We encourage our writers to attend events outside of reporting — for their own betterment as citizens of MU.
Also on the subject of listening, we are planning to hire a public editor. This person will act as an advocate for readers, actively scrutinizing, criticizing and praising The Maneater’s coverage where each is due, and they will publish their findings. They will also take reader concerns to the Editorial Board, ensure they are addressed, and report back to readers with solutions. This is another mechanism to ensure The Maneater is being held accountable and working transparently so we can work to truly earn our role as the student voice.
It often feels that student journalists can’t exhibit empathy or allow that empathy to affect their coverage. That is not the model a student newspaper should follow, and we should not take ourselves so seriously that we forget to care about our sources. We as a newspaper, and journalists as a whole, are still figuring out the line between objective reporting and advocating for our fellow students.
To some extent, this year’s Editorial Board is part of a long chain of previous Editorial Boards. But new editors are selected each year. We recognize that when our terms wrap up at the end of this school year, the systemic issues facing this campus and the journalistic coverage of them will not stop. We’re working to improve. What we’ve laid out in this editorial isn’t all we’ll do. We will keep learning and keep adapting, and we’ll keep you posted through that process. Even if we can’t fix these problems, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work our hardest to take steps toward that goal.
