The mission of your student-run newspaper

By KRISTEN CARR Editor-in-chief

Dear incoming students,

As I survey the current news landscape, I see that the public has a general distrust in news organizations, on both a national and local scale. At The Auburn Plainsman, we know that you deserve a news organization you can depend on: an organization that persistently and diligently seeks out stories that will inform, benefit and challenge our community.

As Editor- in-chief, my hope is to not necessarily restore the trust people have in the media, but to give people the tools to discern truth from lies. I don’t want to tell you what to think, I want to give you information that helps you think for yourself. With every story we publish, we will do our due diligence to research and report the truth in all aspects, because we believe that the truth is our greatest tool for bettering the world.

My personal reason for pursuing journalism stems from my desire to help the ‘little guy’– the people who are taken advantage of, the people who are lied to. The truth, through free speech, is sometimes all we have to keep corruption at bay. Those in power fear it.

The ability I have as a journalist to report the truth to people is powerful. In our current political climate, calls for censorship and the silencing of certain viewpoints have become the norm. Indeed, it is championed.

Once you start to control what is ‘allowed’ to be said and what isn’t, you begin to fall down a slippery slope and freedom quickly fade away. I believe that the concept of protecting the speech that we hate is one that is not only unique to our country, but also essential to journalism and to freedom.

As Ronald Reagan once famously said, “Freedom is never more than one generation from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”

Free speech is what allows us to preserve all our other freedoms. This concept makes me reflect on our own state’s history throughout the civil rights movement.: how despite danger and backlash, the truth was told, fought for and will always win in the end.

I want you, our audience, to feel seen and heard. Regardless of political persuasion or religious affiliation, people should be allowed to receive the truth that informs their decisions and helps them become knowledgeable about their world. I hope to provide that to you and as many people as I can during my career.

I am full of gratitude for the opportunity to pursue my passions in journalism at Auburn through The Plainsman. As you find your passion and do great things at Auburn, our staff will be there to cover it every step of the way. Auburn is an amazing place and has so much to offer as you step into your next stage of life here. My encouragement to you is this — to dive in headfirst and allow yourself to fail, to fall flat on your face, and learn to get back up again. By the end of your time here, I believe that you will have fallen in love with Auburn as much as I have.

Welcome to The Plains and War Eagle!