So why should you read The Campus Weekly? Or really why should you pay attention to any newspaper for that matter? Many have already pronounced newspapers as dead. Am I writing in a dying industry to an empty audience? Possibly – but that will not stop me from attempting to get you to pick up The Campus Weekly every once in a while.

If physically reading words on paper is the issue – or if the once-weekly print schedule is too slow for the digital age – we do have https://smudailycampus.com/. But web news organizations, ours included, now have to compete with Facebook and Twitter as legitimate sources of news for people in this day and age.

While the carefully cultivated feeds of social media do feature musing from friends as well as news organizations, these streams of opinions and news can slant to reflect one’s own biases and leanings. A “mainstream news” organization will hopefully exhibit unbiased stories, and will hopefully feature unique and inspiring opinions.

Why not focus on a major news organization then, one might ask. I will not argue with the assumption that Time Magazine and The Wall Street Journal have better reporting and more skilled writers; we as a staff are all students and we do make mistakes. However, The Campus Weekly does bring its own unique attributes to the table.

For one, The Campus Weekly is completely “self-funded.” Not in the sense of Donald Trump’s campaign, but in that our organization does not take any funding dollars from the school. While this necessitates a smaller staff than other school-funded newspapers (think USC and UCLA), it also gives us a unique freedom in printing and choosing our coverage.

We strive to use this freedom of coverage to bring news and stories that are relevant to you as an SMU student. For myself as an opinion editor, I strive to first and foremost feature discussions every week that are relevant to campus life, while also delivering relevant political content. I know that each of the editors of the respective sections have the unique audience of SMU students in mind as they write.

That is why you should at least give The Campus Weekly a chance – we are here for the sole purpose of providing content that we hope you will find interesting. We offer a unique place for campus-wide discussion and have a unique focus for what is important here on campus.

So to the newest Mustangs reading this, I hope you consider picking up The Campus Weekly every once in a while. And to the parents reading this – I know there are more than a few reading this between AARO events – have your kids give us a shot and check online for news articles and, let’s be honest, you are more likely to get news from there than you will from your children as they start on their college journey.

And most importantly, The Campus Weekly welcomes the class of 2020!