The start of each school year marks a new beginning for The Echo, with a new editorial staff and a fresh group of reporters ready to develop their journalistic skills through The Echo class.
The Echo is an award-winning student newspaper that has served California Lutheran University since 1961, back when the school was still Cal Lutheran College. Although the newspaper is a student effort aimed at helping people gain practical experience with reporting, we are committed to journalistic standards and aim to keep the Cal Lutheran community informed and engaged.
Student reporters are in an interesting time to be studying journalism. But the discussion of fake news, pressure to get stories online quickly while remaining accurate and other calls to media only drive us to be more attentive to our work.
Journalist Carl Bernstein popularly described reporting as working toward “the best attainable version of the truth.” That is what we are doing here at The Echo – the paper is not going to be perfect. You’ll likely find grammar errors or other problems, maybe even in this letter. The point is to continue seeking the truth and dispersing it.
The ultimate goal of the newspaper is to the serve the student body, and we want to hear from you. Some ways to stay engaged are to sign up for our new weekly email newsletter highlighting intriguing reads, follow us on social media and catch us by the flagpole on Tuesday mornings handing out copies of our latest issue. Please drop by to grab a paper and get to know the staff! You can also frequently find us in the newspaper office, Swenson 112.
Last year, The Echo earned multiple California College Media Awards for reporting on topics from Title IX to arts and entertainment. We hope to continue covering important issues that you as our audience care about – so if there’s something we should be covering, let us know! Fill out a comment card at our table, message us on social media or talk to us around campus.
We look forward for the opportunity to serve you this year. Thank you for picking up a copy or reading this from wherever you are.
Dakota Allen
Editor in Chief