Column by Wesley Robinson

This semester will be key in building for the future, both for myself and the Kentucky Kernel. Personally, I have to lay the building blocks for graduation, a career and a life of learning that will cease only when I die. For the Kernel, we are beginning to move forward with journalism as it rapidly evolves and takes on exciting new challenges. All of these things are welcome, but will be very different from what you normally see, so I have a few pieces of information and tips about the Kernel and the opinions page this year.

I hope I speak for more than just myself in saying that the Kernel hopes to be even more open and transparent than ever. Our student newspaper wants to be the best paper possible, and that happens with concerned students, faculty and staff. Don’t just pick up the paper, but give feedback to provide us with unique and interesting story ideas by persistently keeping us honest.

As far as the opinions desk goes, I would like to have as many voices represented as possible, from regular contributors, letters to the editor and even the Journalism 101 students that are seeking to get published for their semester requirement. We want to hear from you. If we only hear from a select few, then the discourse of the university inaccurately represents the population and skews the view of the landscape, and from that, nothing can be solved. With the Kernel serving as the main campus recorder, it would be a good idea to get your song played. Yet, we don’t need excessively loud, profane or offensive music playing, so think of the opinions page like a residential neighborhood and your opinion as the song. There are certain songs you won’t play as loud as others, other songs may not be appropriate to play at certain times, and at times you may not need to play any music at all, and just listen to what is going on in your environment.

A major change that needs to happen, not only at the Kernel, but in every way imaginable is more respect. We don’t plan on skirting the issues or being overly sensitive on issues, but there has to be more thought, reason and care put into opinions. One of the big problems plaguing our nation is an inability of our leaders to respectfully and honestly report facts. Agendas and special interests are getting in the way of the goals of the people and have led to some of the most ridiculous lies, rumors and innuendo being spread at the detriment of the American people, especially in the quality of discussion, we should be able to have. That is something we want to avoid on the opinions page. Being respectful of each other as students and understanding that international students, Greek students, homosexual students, minorities students, non-traditional students and any other grouping of students are all students and disagreement does not have to be disrespectful.

Finally, a note to all of the aspiring journalists and writers: Remember that college serves as the backdrop for your professional life, take the time to come and visit the Kernel and write. I mentioned the Journalism 101 requirements for getting published over the course of the semester, but that shouldn’t be the end of your participation. We always need new ideas, content and writers. I hope to only have a handful of regular columnists, because there are so many quality submissions coming to the opinions mailbox. But that will require effort from you to demonstrate that you want to be a writer. It’s one thing to say you want to do something and another to do it, and that takes persistence beyond sending in work and waiting to hear back from someone or submitting an interest form and disappearing off the face of the Earth.

Specifically at the opinions desk, but for the paper as a whole we will do our best to go through individual pieces with our newer writers, so that the learning experience extends beyond the classroom and can be applied to future work.

I hate to start the year off with more of a fluffy column, but I really want to stress the importance of reading, writing, commenting and any other necessary participation for the Kernel. I hear a lot of people complain about it, with me being one of the complainers in a past life, but the only way for the paper to get better is for us to know what you think. If you feel like the paper sucks and don’t say anything, the paper is going to look the same. That’s not to say detract for detractions sake, but if you have a serious point to make, feel free to make it. If you want to write, come and see us and we will help you out. At the end of it all, our paper is only as good as we all are willing to work. Reading is active.