The field is tumultuous and ever-changing, but at its core, journalism informs and influences. At its best, reporting evokes emotion and empowers a readership to make decisions based on the coverage. Journalism should be truthful, indiscriminate and without bias, but it should also touch upon issues readers care about most.

Mental health is a topic that affects everyone: The statistics and anecdotes in this package, “The Silent Struggle,” prove as much. With the understanding that mental health problems are wide-reaching, we partnered with various student media outlets to thoroughly report on this subject. None of our projects can ever encompass the campus in its entirety, but our reporters tried to get as much of a holistic glimpse as possible.

As journalists, we have all had to cover mental health issues on a number of occasions. As students, we have friends on campus who’ve been affected by mental health issues. In some cases — as you’ll read in some of our coverage — we’ve been affected ourselves.

We hope you’ll read, react and respond to our coverage on KentWired.com. Without this coverage, we aren’t doing our job as Kent State student journalists covering issues that pertain to our peers on campus. Without providing a forum for discussion about mental health, perhaps there’s no influence. Grappling with this silent struggle is remarkably difficult, and without journalists informing their readership, perhaps that task is virtually impossible.

Editor’s note: This story is part of a student media project entitled “The Silent Struggle.” See the whole project here. 

Jimmy Miller is the editor of The Kent Stater, contact him at [email protected]