Oracle Online

That said, the Oracle does not wish to submit to censorship. This newspaper has been a student-run, student-governed publication since its inception in 1888. The university should be proud that it has a student body willing to enact change and report facts through print media. The editorial control of the Oracle has rested, and should continue to rest, with the student body, not the administration. Students are the agents of change at this newspaper, and students shape its editorial policies from year to year.

If any student wishes to affect the direction and content of this newspaper, they need only join the student media board or the Oracle staff. In the coming weeks the Oracle will provide information about how students can apply for the at-large representative spots on the media board, as well as when and where the campus-wide elections will take place. Soon we will conduct a reader survey to quantify those voices, and to zero in on what our readers expect from us.

The Oracle should not be a cheering section for all things Hamline, and whether most readers realize it or not, no one should want it to be. This newspaper works to exist as a source of accurate and truthful news, pointed rhetoric, and some things that are just plain entertaining.

We leave pep talks to coaches, cheerleading to cheerleaders, and propagating a pro-Hamline message to those whose excellent job it is to keep this university in fine financial standing.

And we leave important life-decisions up to our readers. We don’t condone or dismiss behavior like binge-drinking. Rather we present it as it is. We sell ads for bars because we trust that our readers and peers are educated and sound-minded enough to make their own decisions. We are not here to water-down and sterilize the world around us.

We’re here to inform, represent and entertain.

This year the student body has been vocal in its support of our content, our feature articles and the return of “Beyond the Bedroom.” So loud was the outcry for the return of our beloved sex column that the Oracle was only able to print a whopping three issues before we acquiesced to the simple yet eloquently phrased demand issued by the collective voice of the campus, “Bring it back!”

We have done so, not to kowtow to some sort of sensationalist, sex-crazed mania, but because we believe that the column is and will continue to be entertaining, informative and downright sexy.

The Oracle has its own policies against printing unnecessary profanity, nudity and sensational material. We do not use shock value to sell newspapers because we do not “sell” newspapers. We produce this product because we believe in the free press, and to an even greater extent, because we believe that the Hamline community values the free voice that the Oracle has provided since 1888.

Please do not sacrifice your freedom of speech so that Hamline can paint a “less offensive” image of itself to possible financiers and prospective students. The fact that the Oracle is not campus-controlled, as many other publications on campuses our size are, should be a boon to our community. This is our home too, and while we love it, we do not believe that we can in good conscience sacrifice our voice to purport some idyllic vision of Hamline.