Actions speak louder than words, but I would be lying if I said words were not hitting pretty hard right now. 

As my managing editor Connor wrote in his piece last week, we have experienced a surge of hot topics in in our news coverage. Subsequently, we have more readers than ever, which is a blessing no matter the cost. 

While I do not use YikYak, the anonymous public forum has been dropping some heated “criticism,” if you would even call it that, in response to our coverage of the arrest in McLean, Theta Xi allegations and, of course, Connor’s Your World Today. 

Connor’s piece was a slap in the face to a lot of people, but I stand by his writing and argue it was warranted. As a news organization, it is our job to call out when we see errors, corruption and harmful social policies, which is exactly what he did. I doubt that half of you currently reading this piece would have done so last month if not for Connor’s recent work. 

Our philosophy on news coverage is shockingly simple: Do good things, and we report good things; do bad things, and we report bad things. Through the transitive property, if you do not want us to report bad things, do not do bad things.

The post that stuck with me was someone saying “Defund The Slate” because, be for real with me, what do you think defunding us will do? That without the resources our student government provides for us we would not function? You are sorely mistaken if you believe that, because across the country, student newspaper’s budgets are being cut, but the news is not stopping. Printing is amazing, but the articles catching the most interest right now have been online exclusives. 

Additionally, I have found that the same people who run their mouths anonymously are the first to choke up when confronted. The Slate is the student voice, and we are more than willing (even excited) to run pieces that criticize our work or opinions in our pages. And yet for every YikYak comment I read, we receive no articles in our inbox. 

Write a letter to the editor if you feel so strongly: 500 words maximum, 12 point Times New Roman, single spacing, name on the document, emailed to slate.ship@gmail.com. Trust me, we will run it. It is a requirement in our constitution, and I believe our adviser, Michael Drager, would kill me if I did not. 

The Slate is not just an elite organization of muckrakers trying to spew dirt on everyone and everything. 

But I doubt that even after reading this piece we will receive any such articles because the people who can fire off 12 words of hate do not stand by their words enough to draft a real article. Put your money where your mouth is and actually do something, because that is what we have been doing since The Slate started in 1957. It is your right as a Shippensburg student to have your voice heard, but honestly, it only has merit if you can stand behind the words you say.

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