Dear Puget Sound students, staff, faculty and Tacoma community members;
I, like many of you, came to this University with the hope of becoming a part of a community. When I transferred to Puget Sound years ago, I was greeted with something no tour, website, or application could have shown me. This community full of dreamers, believers, and achievers welcomed me with open arms. We are all here for the same reason, to learn, make mistakes, fall down, get up again, grow, and start anew.
I am thrilled to serve as The Trail’s Executive Editor-in-Chief. Alongside my incredible Co-Editor, Casey O’Brien, I am proud to lead the staff we’ve assembled this year. They are a group of people who fill me with awe each and every day, and I hope that by reading the Trail you too can feel their passion manifested through this publication.
It is with a an overwhelming sense of gratitude that I release this first issue to you. In these pages you will find a work 106 years in the making. In the true reflection of the Puget Sound community, The Trail makes mistakes. We turn them into opportunities. And with an unparalleled dedication, The Trail team learns and grows with each and every step.
Writing has been a passion of mine for as long as I can remember. It is within the written word that we can convey new ideas, give new perspectives to old thoughts, shed light on the unknown, and give voice to the voiceless. This is what I hope to accomplish in my time at The Trail. I want to find those sparks of passion in people and give them the platform and resources to make a difference.
It is never an easy time to be “the media.” As journalists we have an obligation to pursue the truth, to enable the exchange of fair and accurate information. We seek the truth and report it. We put in long hours for the sake of public enlightenment and justice. We hold the foundation of democracy on our shoulders. And in doing so, we constantly struggle to balance transparency and truth.
So to the readers of the Trail, I ask this of you- hold us accountable. Read what we have to offer, contact us with questions, write letters to us, meet me in my office hour. We as an organization do not exist to decide what the news is. The news happens, and we are there to record. There is no good news, there is no bad news, there is just news. So hold us accountable, but don’t expect us to go away.
In my opinion, journalists are, in the words of the late Steve Jobs, “crazy.” I’m proud to be a part of this crazy group of people, because I firmly believe in our capacity to incite change.
“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can praise them, quote them, disagree with them, glorify them or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the ones who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
Madeline Brooks