A recurring problem for us at The News has been people holding grudges or hatred towards the newspaper for past instances. Recently on Saturday, the 2023 Unofficial occurred.

In the past editors of The News and Unofficial attendees have bashed heads in a disagreement stemming from The News’ coverage of the 2021 Unofficial which Eastern had asked students not to have due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The News’ coverage led to others being angry and threatening past editors. This anger carried over into last year’s Unofficial as well.

While for 2023’s Unofficial, the majority disregarded editors reporting on the house crawl, there were a few people who called us “ops” or “snitches.” Those comments were directed to editors who were not at Eastern during the coverage of 2021’s Unofficial.

When the editors relayed this to the group of attendees one of them said current staff members didn’t do anything wrong but The News did. It seems the anger stems from past experiences.

However, there is still one staff member who helped cover 2021’s Unofficial. They don’t hold an editor position this semester and will graduate at the end of this semester.

After this semester, no one at The News will be a part of what caused students to be angry. Once the staff from 2021 is gone, your anger at The News’ should too.

It is unfair to hold grudges against The News and student journalists because of past experiences with reporters and editors who graduated years ago.

It is not just students who have held grudges against us.

Faculty and staff have also held grudges against The News and refuse to speak to us because of instances that occurred years ago. If you do not want to talk to us, that is your choice. However, do not attack our editors and reporters for experiences they were not a part of or don’t even know anything about what happened.

If the editors at The News upset you in 2013, don’t hold old grudges against current staff. We might be able to recognize a name but we do not know them. Therefore, the current staff does not know why you are mad, which is very frustrating for us.

We at The News are just trying to do our job and cover the Eastern community to the best of our abilities, and as students, we are still learning every day. We are student-run and there is no descriptive history that lists every altercation and burnt bridge The News has had.

We also cannot amend things if we do not know what happened and you refused to even speak to us.

However, some burnt bridges were done with reason, and we are not in the wrong in every altercation.

If you threaten us for little things, we are not going to pacify you. Don’t be an authority figure and threaten a staff member by saying a backhanded comment like “don’t make me regret talking to you” or someone who anonymously threatens the safety of our staff if your feelings are hurt.

Past mistakes by past students are not any of the current students’ fault, so stop treating it like it is.

The Editorial Board can be reached at 581-2812.