Farewell UNI

It might be hard to believe that I, the Executive Editor of the Northern Iowan didn't actually pick up a copy of this newspaper until the second semester of my junior year at the  University of Northern Iowa. And I actually didn't even pick up the first paper I ever read myself. One of my roommates regularly brought the paper home, and I hated it.
   
I read the paper a few times and some of the content ticked me off beyond belief. How could someone in college be that horrible of a writer? Why wasn't this much better than my own high school paper? And most importantly, if these people were writing for the campus newspaper – why couldn't I?
   
So instead of continuing to rant to my roommates about how horrible a partiular writer was, I decided to something about it, and attended my first writer's meeting a few weeks later. Fast forward a little more than two years, and here we are, issue No. 54, the last paper of my Executive Editor run at the Northern Iowan.
   
During the course of my time at the NI, I've essentially been called a liar by a member of the UNI administration, labeled by others as racist, or morally corrupt – and even "shamed." All of these words came from people I haven't even ever met in person. At the same time I've been thanked, and received a lot of genuine gratitude for the work the Northern Iowan has done at shedding much needed light on various important issues on campus. Each one of the individual thanks makes all of the negative words worth it.
   
This year I like to think that our team at the NI has brought something to UNI that hasn't been around as much in previous years – the "truth" in journalism. Truth that didn't hide or censor itself due to fear of backlash from the administration or the community. While our staff members are only students, and we have no official editorial advisor to look to for guidance - there were some mistakes and things we might have done a little differently the second time around – I have no regrets about any of the content we published, no matter how many people it pissed off.
   
This is what I feel has refined the role of the Northern Iowan on campus. Today many are under the impression that a campus newspaper exists to entertain or inform students of the bright and shining parts of life on campus and in the community. To print opinions about the importance of Kleenex in the classroom and the warm fuzzy feelings we get when studying abroad. Subjects of religion, race and even strip club advertisements are "too racy."
   
Those ideas, while they might sound nice in a perfect world, do not coincide with the role of a journalist or a columnist. While the Northern Iowan may just be a college newspaper, we hope to train and inspire our writers to operate at a professional level and serve the community as true journalists.
   
I hope that this essence of journalism can continue on campus, but the fact is that we need support to ensure the entire community hears our messages. This year we have progressed our website to include things such as video, photo slideshows and web exclusive stories. While our website hits have increased by approximately 300 percent, the number is still low. To get students reading the Northern Iowan online, we know it would be beneficial if some of the stories that we exclusively covered were posted on the "In the News" section of the UNI Web site.
   
We have approached the administration with this idea, but they have not been cooperative. However, we believe this is an attainable goal that would bring more students to a place that presents the news they care about – news from students for students. If you support this idea please call or write the University Pubic Relations and Marketing Department at (319) 273-2761 or umpr@uni.edu.

Thanks for helping us have a great run this year!
Your (now former) Executive Editor,
Nikki Davidson