Five people can hardly be the voice for more than 20,000, but that’s what we try to do as the Daily Kent Stater’s editorial board. Yes, five people. Not 100. Not 40. Not 10. Five.

There’s always been confusion as to how or why we write the editorials that appear in this space five days a week, so we wanted to explain to those of you who are new to this university (and many of you who aren’t) what exactly we do here.

The five of us will meet twice a week, every week this semester, to plan the week’s editorials. We sit for 40 minutes to an hour, sometimes longer, in the editor’s office at the back of the newsroom and talk about everything from politics to personal anecdotes to what the ceiling looks like.

Eventually, we come up with issues that, we hope, will be thought-provoking. We will encourage or condemn actions of the university and community when we feel it’s necessary. Each of us is assigned to write one editorial a week describing and commenting on our chosen, current topic. We come to agreement on how we will approach each issue at our meetings.

“What qualifies us to do this?” you might ask. Well, we’re students too. We sit in classes with you. We see some of the same problems you see. We also have some insight into the inner workings of the university through our experience as reporters and editors.

We thought we’d say a bit about ourselves. First of all, we’re all journalism majors. Two of us are seniors and the other three are juniors. We’re all white. We’re all fairly liberal. (One of us calls herself a moderate.) Two of us are from Ohio. We’ve got a New Jersey native, someone who has lived in Chicago, South Carolina and Ohio, as well as a Canadian on board – although the Canadian will tell you she spent half her life in Kent.

We’ve all spent too much time in the newsroom. Most of us started working for the Stater when we were freshmen. Every semester, the staff of our newspaper changes. Some of us graduate; some leave the paper and many move up to positions of greater responsibility. The editor is rarely the same person for more than one semester. So the people on the editorial board change, too. Some of us have been doing this longer than others, and we admit we can’t do this alone. We’re going to bring more reporting into our editorials this semester. If we have a question about an issue or we need something clarified, one of us might just give you a call.

This semester we also want to encourage you to give us feedback, as you always have. Like we said, the five of us have fairly similar views and backgrounds, and, admittedly, we aren’t the most diverse group of people. Thus, your feedback is more important than ever.

You can feel free to stop by the newsroom and talk to us. You can give us a call at (330) 672-2584, e-mail us at [email protected] or comment at KentNewsNet.com.

We might look and sound busy, but we want to hear from you. If you think we aren’t listening, do something about it. Write us angry letters, call the newsroom and ask to speak with us, go to Franklin Hall, wave your arms and demand to be heard.

After all, we’re in this together.

The above editorial is the consensus opinion of the Daily Kent Stater editorial board.