The editor's scoop: My pledge to you: a commitment to excellence

09/06/07 - I'm going to first acknowledge that I've never done this before. Running a college newspaper published four times a week is a dramatic undertaking loaded with responsibility. I am both humbled and honored that the board that oversees the Good Five Cent Cigar considered me qualified to lead this 36-year-old paper read by thousands of students, faculty, staff, parents, alumni and others each year. I feel an awesome duty to provide these readers with an accurate, fair and balanced view of the University of Rhode Island during the next eight months. I pledge to put in 110 percent, take time to listen to reader concerns and be the first to admit when we make mistakes. But I'm asking for your help.

Students, this is your paper. These pages belong to you, not me and not the Cigar staff. Tell us what you want covered. We are not psychic and sometimes not covering an event or issue is not an intentional decision but rather a result of us being in the dark.

Grace these opinion pages with your comments - we do not filter out views we don't agree with or letters that criticize our coverage. In fact, we welcome such letters as it provides us an opportunity to grow and learn. E-mail us at cigar@etal.uri.edu or drop by our office in Room 125 of the Memorial Union.

Even better, join our staff. We need reporters, columnists, copy editors, photographers and business people to make the paper tick. A wide variety of students with different majors, backgrounds and views help shape our paper in a way that reflects the diverse student population. I urge you to try your hand at reporting, writing or editing. You might find it exciting and even discover a future career in it as I did.

And yes, as a newspaper, we will goof up, as any newspaper will. Check Page A2 of The New York Times any day of the week and you'll find a lengthy list of corrections. Here at the Cigar, it's important for readers to understand that our staff is composed entirely of students ranging from journalism to engineering majors. If we were professionals we wouldn't be attending college or working at a student newspaper.

I hope you, as readers, will understand this and recognize that each staff member is giving it his or her all, from the reporter covering an event to the production manager putting together the paper at 1 a.m. By the time the paper hits the press at least two editors have read each story, one has reviewed it with the reporter and the managing editor given a stamp of approval.

But this year we are going to go the extra mile in a quest for accuracy. Starting next Tuesday and on each consecutive Tuesday, we will publish a list of corrections from the smallest name misspelling to the largest goof. It may force us to hold a story or stay an extra 30 minutes but I firmly believe this demonstrates a commitment to excellence. Readers deserve nothing less.