Truth, lies, and disclaimers

On the back of just about every issue of the IDS Weekend magazine, there is a dual ad for Bluebird/Axis nightclubs. This week's ad features promos for various hip-hop and rock shows, a hot body contest and $1 Miller Lites.\nDoes this mean the Indiana Daily Student endorses and supports drinking and home-wrecking women in wet T-shirts? Some people would say yes.\nOr does this mean that the IDS is simply in favor of students knowing where to go out and have a good time? Does this mean we're selling out?\nDoes it mean anything at all?\nI ask these hypothetical questions because of a letter to the editor the opinion desk received about a week ago. The writer didn't much appreciate what opinion columnist Colin Dugdale wrote about that week. The writer, in not-so-many words said that we at the IDS either endorsed Dugdale's point of view, or we were negligent in our roles as editors.\nWhen I questioned the opinion editors about this, both of them, practically simultaneously, said, "there's a reason why each columnist's name and picture go next to their columns."\nEditors Elisha Sauers and Janet Hamilton confessed that, by golly, they don't agree with everything they put in the paper, but they put it in because they value a diversity of opinion.\nHamilton put it another way as well -- "If we endorsed everything that went on that page we'd be hypocrites, because some things are exact opposites."\nEditorial adviser Beth Moellers, however, addressed the conundrum in a more confessional manner.\n"In a sense we do endorse, and in a sense we don't," she said. "We endorse by way of putting things in the paper, basically saying 'we think you need to see this.'"\nHow right she is.\nNothing makes it into the IDS without someone's approval, including this column. Final say on the contents falls squarely in the editor in chief's lap, but because he or she can't do it all, others make decisions as well. The advertising managers help decide what advertisements make it onto the pages. The various section editors assign stories that they believe need to be covered and then put those stories on their pages. Then, the managing editor or the EIC will approve the pages before they go to print.\nIn the case of advertising, ads can be rejected if they are obscene or otherwise inappropriate. Ads that make it into the paper both met the approval standard, and of course have been paid for. Stories that appear in the paper have been edited by at least two people before they hit the page, and most times (though mistakes happen) have been thoroughly vetted for accuracy and fairness. The stories you read every day are the stories the editors thought were important enough to put in the paper for you to take time to read. Naturally, we can't fit everything in, so we cover the bases as best we can.\nThe IDS can't endorse everything that goes into it; if it did, we all would be suffering from multiple personality disorder. What the IDS staff does is take mountains of information and distill it down to the package form you see in the newsstand in the morning. Some things get lost in the translation -- some things don't make it into the translation at all. And every semester the editors change, so the translation will too.\nIn a sense, the IDS is like the weather. If you don't like it, just wait a while, and it will change -- a luxury that many other news outlets don't have.\nWe also have a survey running on page 8 where you can tell us what you do and don't like. So allow me to endorse the survey: Fill out the survey and win prizes! (Seriously.)