The 2007-2008 school year was an interesting one for the Independent. It was full of problems that would make most normal people just try to fade into the background. It was also full of good things.
For those of you who have noticed the continually changing masthead this semster, Jonathan Gronli is our fourth Editor-in-Chief. It is a rarity for that amount of change to happen in a school year for the organization. There are a couple of reasons for the multiple changes. Rather early in the fall semester, our first EiC was falsely accused of a crime and was removed from the newspaper for the duration of the investigation. The important thing is that the accusation was found to be false and an innocent person was saved from needless time in court. This was reported on in the Sept. 25, 2007 issue. For the sake of all involved, that is all that needs to be said about the matter. However, that is what lead to the instability and multiple changes to the position of the Chief.
Even through this instability, two good things happened. We came out with issues on time–save for the April 8 issue, due to printer error rather than staff error–and we actually gained a staff that was more than 10-15 regularly contributing staff members. The high point of the school year was this past semester though, when the newspaper actually started regularly covering state (Blago’s budgetary woes and tuition hikes), national (the presidential election) and international (the war) issues to bring stuff back home.
Felicia Maxa, a soldier in the U.S. Army National Guard and former staff writer, offered to give us articles when she is able to that cover her experiences in Iraq during her second tour of duty there. Meaning, we are one of the first, if not the first and only college paper, actually getting coverage of the war beyond what mainstream media gives us.
Presidential election coverage started with Gronli writing about Obama winning the New Hampshire primary, though he admits that his stories regarding the race for the White House could’ve been much better. Blago and the tuition hikes were better covered due to former writers and editors of the Independent, Patrick O’Brien and Andrea Zelinski, who work for newspapers downstate during their time in grad school.
Also we were able to send three writers to NIU to cover the recent tragedy. They went both as reporters and concerned students offering a comforting hand. The comforting hand was especially extended to those who work for the NIU newspaper for their coverage of their campus tragedy, while still being hounded by mainstream media outlets for information worldwide regarding the shooting.
Readers might have also noticed the rapid rise and then thinning of columns in the newspaper. Former EiC Mark Clover attributed it to the need for consistent content. Gronli thought that Clover’s idea was a bit excessive but only did away with a column if the writer just didn’t want to do it anymore.
Readers told EiC Gronli that this semester’s issues have been the best in years. He hopes that, regardless of any problems that may pop up or whoever is elected to take his place as the Chief, the staff pulls together and works to continue improving the newspaper as they did this school year. He also wishes those who are graduating and leaving the Independent the best of luck in all their endeavors.