Column: The EIC’s semester review

Kat Mabry / Roundup

As the semester comes to a close, students prepare to take their finals and the Roundup publishes its very last issue for the spring of 2011. I can’t help thinking, where did the time go?

Only 12 weeks ago to date, I had written a “letter from the editor” expressing my goals for the upcoming issues. These included promises to provide the students and faulty with the most up-to-date news concerning Pierce College.

Other goals were commitments to provide our readers with an in-depth look into the beautification projects around the campus, the LACCD and their decisions and available food options (as the cafeteria was demolished).

Through live streams of the Townhall meeting, two media arts speaker series events and the LACCD meeting in the Great Hall, I feel that the team this semester has met its goals.

I hope you agree.

I also feel that it is important to note that I could not have accomplished the goals that I had set out for myself as Editor-in-Chief this semester without the help and dedication of our editorial board, who were gracious enough to listen to my suggestions, most of the time.

You, as our readers, must have noticed that we have taken risks as a team of writers to print what we felt was most important, whatever the cost.

We’ve challenged the district and their decisions, asked our own campus president tough questions that students are wondering about, and hoped that through printing only the facts that it would be helpful.

One purpose as your college paper is to bring up the questions that you, as students, may be too afraid to ask. With our reporting and some research of your own, we hope that we have helped you to develop your own conclusions on matters that really matter.

Though I regret the spelling errors, grammar mistakes and name corrections we had to print this semester, it is important to keep in mind that we are a studentrun paper; no help or copyediting is received from our team of advisors and journalism professors before our publication goes to print.

Every issue is considered the weekly miracle, and some of our advisors have even been known to see it as our weekly final—a secret I trust that we can keep just between us.

Being purely a student-run machine, it’s only reasonable that mistakes will be made as we learn. Even though we were unable to provide coverage to every event on campus, we made an effort to do so.

With hard work and commitment from a very small team of writers, writers whom I could not be more proud of, we did what we could to be fair.

The goal was always to include balanced coverage through clubs 4-1-1, sheriff’s blotters, tweets, news briefs, features, arts and entertainment, sports and editorials. Each week we’ve set out to squeeze as much of the most newsworthy information into our weekly publication as possible, and we tried to have a little fun too.

It is bittersweet to admit that after this issue and until fall, the newsstands will not be replenished with newer Roundup papers.

If, throughout this semester, your opinion us or of the standard we try to uphold in our publication and online has diminished, or you feel that we have not met your expectations, my only hope is that you will give the next members of the Roundup staff an equal opportunity to win you back as our readership.

And while you let that marinate, consider that our commitment to you will continue throughout the summer on our website, theroundupnews.com. The news never sleeps, and as student journalists, neither do we.

Be sure to check out the site for continuing coverage.