The Kent Stater staff typically meets three times a week in a room decorated with the front pages of that semester’s newspapers. As this year’s editor-in-chief, I look at the newspapers pinned to the nearby cork board wall and remember our staff’s hard work. We’re proud of these front pages and the hours of planning, writing, designing and photographing required to create each of them.

Finding ways to get readers to read the Stater is a tall order and has been since I started at Kent State in 2013. There’s no formula for attracting readership, especially at a place like Kent State, which is rich in diversity, viewpoints and interests.

But the front page is what readers see first. Any given day, a reader could make a snapshot judgement on just a snippet of our work. I’m proud of our staff for always keeping the audience in mind. Our aforementioned hours of hard work are verified by reaching the reader. If nobody looked at our content, we’d have wasted our time crafting the Stater.

Those front pages in our meeting room are the ones that urged readers to pick up a copy of The Kent Stater on our various newsstands across campus. Their importance cannot be understated.

Every semester is bittersweet, but reflecting on my final semester is even more so than usual. The staff produced meaningful journalism not for ourselves, but for the reader. I hope this tradition of creating engaging front pages continues for years to come.

Jimmy Miller is the editor of The Kent Stater. Contact him at [email protected].