All right.

I’ll admit it.

I did it.

I wrote the Greek Week editorial.

In my final act as editor in chief, I thought it would be fitting to actually take accountability for the editorial that has so many students up in arms.

What the response to the editorial taught me was not to never criticize the Greek community, as some may suspect, but that the majority of students on Eastern’s campus do not understand the difference between an editorial, a column and a news article.

The editor in chief is responsible for all content that goes into the paper. But to quote Peter Parker’s uncle Ben, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Part of my responsibility as editor in chief of the DEN is to make sure the campus understands the difference between certain aspects of the paper.

Editorials

Contrary to popular belief, an editorial is not nameless.

The editorial is written based on the majority decision of the editorial board. The voting editorial board for the Daily Eastern News is made up of the editor in chief, the managing editor, the news editor, the editor of dennews.com, the opinion page editor, the sports editor and the photo editor. That means four people have to agree on the editorial in order for it to run.

An editorial is an OPINION, not a news article.

Columns

Columns are based on the opinion of the writer. They do not reflect the opinion of the editorial board. They reflect the opinion of the author. Again, it is just an opinion.

News Articles

News articles are a reporting of the facts. When we cover an event, we go to the event and talk to participants. We lead the article with the most interesting aspect of the event. For example, the basketball team winning or losing is usually the most interesting thing that happens at a game. A news article should be unbiased, which we at the DEN strive to accomplish.

Clearing up misconceptions

After reading some comments on dennews.com, I felt that I should clear up some misconceptions. We are never in a competition with other schools for the most comments or visits to our site. We do not write editorials for publicity. We write editorials because they are the majority opinion of the editorial board.

Letters to the Editor are run as long as the author can be verified. They are run in the order they are received. Boycotting or protesting the paper is fine; however, it is illegal to destroy newspapers. They are the property of The Daily Eastern News, and it is a criminal act to destroy mass amounts of the paper.

What you can do

Eastern students need to educate themselves about the journalistic processes in order to fully understand the media. If students are dissatisfied with the student publications, we urge the students to become involved in the process and work to better The DEN.

But to reiterate, this is just my opinion.