Dear Readers,
Many of you on this campus know me—as an orientation leader, a classmate, a fellow activist, and a friend. I have interviewed some of you as a reporter for this newspaper, and written stories about your achievements and your aspirations for Puget Sound. My hope is that I have accurately portrayed what is happening on campus and in our community. I am grateful for the many of you who helped me to write informative and comprehensive stories.
As I embark on a new journey as editorial editor in chief of the Trail, I hope that the relationships I established as a reporter will help me to guide a first rate newspaper –which this community deserves. My incredible co editor, Madeline, and myself are excited to support the Trail’s growth and continual improvement.
After attending a Journalism and Leadership seminar In Minneapolis this summer, I feel ready to take on this role and use what I learned there to grow the Trail’s impact. We will use teamwork, commitment and a determination to seek truth to serve our readers.
I believe in the power of student media to create stronger and inclusive communities. Every week, about 5,000 of you—faculty, staff, parents, students, and fellow Tacoma residents—will read this paper. You will see yourselves, your friends, and your colleagues in these pages, and you will learn about what is happening on our campus, in this city and beyond.
Community members are doing interesting and incredible things, and we want to highlight them. We want to share your stories of what you love about Puget Sound and what has alienated you here.
What are you doing? What are you fighting for? This is what we are seeking. We want to provide you with a voice, a platform, and a source of information so that you can be citizens and agents of change on campus and beyond.
We also aim to provide a connection and site of dialogue between our campus and our city, a place that is dynamic and fascinating. Part of our role as student media is to engage our wider community and share what is happening beyond the edges of our 92 acres, as well as share the campus news with Tacoma residents.
If we do our job well, the trail can do our part to build a better Puget Sound for all of us—because this campus reflects the world, and that means that oppression and injustice are a part of the fabric of our lives here. Our job as your newspaper is to holistically cover Puget Sound—what we are doing well and what we need to improve, accurately and without judgment or bias.
I will need your help to make that happen. Every reader can help us to be a better paper. Whatever you read—whether it is a trail report in our Sports and Outdoors section, a profile in our Features section, a satire piece in Combat Zone, or an investigative story in News—I want to hear what you think. Come to my coffee hours every Thursday from 12-1 in Diversions, send me an email at trail@pugetsound.edu, or just find on me on campus, and share your thoughts –because we want to hear it.
Casey O’Brien