You guys all have some great ideas about the Envoy and I love hearing it so
keep it coming. Better yet, come to the Envoy's meetings which are at 2:30
on Wednesday afternoons and voice your concerns and opinions there. As some
of you know the meetings are open to anyone interested in being a part of
the newspaper and I have repeatedly invited some of the Envoy's biggest
critics but they never show. I agree with Jon, if you want to see changes in
student media then you have to join the student media- it's no use
criticizing what you don't know anything about or aren't willing to do the
work to change.

A few points of clarification -

1. Taking the Envoy weekly has been something I've wanted to do for a long
time. It's true though, it's a really large undertaking and it's extremely
expensive. There are different ways that it can be done but I always felt
that the paper should be the best that it can be as a bi-weekly paper before
it takes on the ambitious project of becoming a weekly. The Envoy has an
amazing staff of 24 hard-working students who are incredibly committed to
the newspaper...they are not to blame for the reason we aren't weekly - that
was my decision.

2. The Envoy website, another one of my long term goals just got started
this semester and we are still figuring out the best way to do it. William
you are right, it would be awesome if it were fully-functional with a great
search engine and archives! You should sit down with the future leadership
at the Envoy and give them some feedback on what you think would improve it.

3. The full-color covers are the least expensive thing about the newspaper.
I appreciate your financial criticism but take your own advice and learn a
little bit about the Envoy before you run off your laundry list of its
problems.

4. The reason we covered Hunter First so late is because they didn't
announce that they were a platform until well after the publishing of the
last issue prior to the elections...that is the problem with having a
bi-weekly paper. As members of Hunter First will verify, many of them came
into the office to meet with our News Editor after the election and we had a
great conversation (and some great photos!)

5. Jon, the only point I strongly disagree with you on, and this is based on
personal experience, is the faculty advisor. I think in all cases it is an
extremely bad idea to have a faculty advisor. It is absolutely essential to
reach out to our community of professors and get feedback but having someone
appointed by the administration with the charge of overseeing the day-to-day
workings of a newspaper is, in my opinion, a bad idea. The Envoy may in your
opinion be an awful paper, but at least we're free to make our own mistakes
without the administration telling us where they thing we went wrong. If a
publication has nothing, at least it has its independence.

7. The Envoy has nothing to do with SLAM. I don't know how many more ways I
can say that....

The bottom line, as always, is it that the paper is what you make it...if
you want to change the Envoy then join it. Standing on the sidelines and
shooting uninformed comments from the hip does nothing but make you look
like you don't know what you're talking about and it pisses off the people
that do a tremendous amount of work to make the newspaper happen.
It really is a hands on project and some of you have some amazing skills
that the Envoy can really benefit from.

I would love to see all of the campus media get together and make decisions
about how we can support each other and strengthen each other's work. It's
so silly for us to be fighting when we are all so intelligent and capable.
Jeanie and Monica have tried so hard to create this kind of atmosphere when
they took on the incredibly difficult job of co-chairing the Media Board.
The media at our college can only stand to benefit from our collective
experience and input, are we ready to make that kind of commitment to our
media? I hear a lot of talk...but I don't see so much action.

Peace,
Jenn Weiss
Editor-In-Chief
The Hunter Envoy