The Retort

Letter From the Editor

Tue September 29th, 2009 by Steven Pittenger Of The Retort Staff

Well, here we are again. The year has kicked off and my hair has already began to thin, my personal appearance is similar to that of Courtney Love – just not quite as put together – and I’m pretty sure I’m going to end up in the fetal position sucking my thumb and crying before the semester is over.

Still, on the positive side I’ve got a whole lot more people to share the craziness with me this year. My former co-editor has moved on to greener pastures (hopefully to pastures where Xanex grows on trees) and I have a slightly less insulting budget than last year. I suppose it’s all about balance.

The Retort has managed to make a few steps toward being a well-respected journalistic paper too. We are increasing the size of our issues as well as printing in full color, and if that wasn’t enough you will now have eight issues to read before the year is over instead of the previous four.

I would like to take this opportunity to encourage all students to submit their ideas and articles to the Retort. We really make this paper for the students and faculty of this campus. The more ownership you can take of it the better. If you think something should be covered that we’re not, write an article about it and send it in.

Also, I wanted to take a moment and clear up several commonly heard rumors about the Retort. While individual members of the Retort may have specific political, religious, or moral leanings, the Retort as a journalistic entity is entirely neutral. All too often liberals accuse us of being too conservative and conservatives accuse us of being too liberal. The truth is we publish what we have. If an issue has a slant toward one political camp or the other it’s because those articles represented the majority of articles we had for that particular issue.

While I’m clearing out the rumor mill, I wanted to let you know that we as an organization support freedom of speech, and encourage people to exercise it. So please be aware that when articles are edited, it is not because we intend to change the meaning of what someone said or twist words around. Editing for content is always a hard call, and never something I or any of the editors here take lightly.

However, we all recognize that sometimes it becomes important to edit in order to protect the integrity of the paper. The most common reason for editing however is simply space issues. We do have a limited amount of space and can’t always publish everything word for word.

Occasionally a piece is edited because it contains derogatory, defaming, or libelous material, but that really is rare. My point simply is that we would NEVER edit a piece simply because we didn’t like what it had to say. Although I must say on a personal note that despite the fact that I swear like a sailor, drink like a sailor, most often in the company of sailors (that’s a different article all together though) I wish people could find ways of expressing themselves without dropping the f-bomb every other sentence.

Finally, I just want to say how excited I am to work with the new and returning staff of the Retort. Even though we pay them so little that sweat shop workers laugh at them, they have committed to making this paper better than ever before. They all bring a wealth of skills and experiences and I’m hopeful that these skills and talents will align to create a unique flavor we can call our own.

Steven Pittenger

Editor-In-Chief