With the conclusion of the annual staff-wide elections on Saturday, we editors of the newly elected 128th Editorial Board have been handed the privilege of putting out The Sun on a daily basis for the next year. It is a big job — one that will require a lot of dedication and hard work from many talented individuals — but I am positive that we are up to the task.
As you may know, Cornell University is at a crossroads. The decisions that will be made in the upcoming year will have an enormous, tangible effect on the shape of the University. The Reimagining process has also pushed us Sunnies to constantly think about our coverage — where we’re succeeding and where we’re failing. As University President David Skorton said last semester, the administration is “going to depend on the Daily Sun to help us … to push us by writing alternative points of view … to ask the things that the campus wants to ask.”
If the Sun is to continue its mission of informing the Cornell community, we have some re-imagining of our own to do, some tough decisions to make. Traditional sources of revenue are drying up, and newspapers across the country are trying to shore up their balance sheets without sacrificing quality or integrity.
The internet will undoubtedly play a key part of this process. The Sun’s online edition, www.cornellsun.com, will be constantly evolving as we search for ways to improve and monetize its quality content. We’ll be trying new things and updating more often. On that note, keep an eye out for a redesigned version of cornellsun.com on the horizon.
With all this focus on the web, the Sun’s editorial structure has changed: We created the position of web managing editor, and we’re still very much trying to get a grasp of how the position will fit in with the rest of the organization. We’d love to hear your suggestions; the New York Times and other acclaimed newspapers have yet to discover the best way to integrate journalism with the internet, but I would not be surprised if one of our clever readers helped us take steps in the right direction.
Let us know what you love, what you hate and everything in between. It can be easy to lose sight of the big picture in our office down at 139 W. State Street, but we’re here first and foremost to serve you, the readers.
So sit down, buckle up and keep on reading. It’s going to be quite a year.
— K.S.W.