Each week the editorial board reflects on a current issue in Our View. The position taken does not reflect the opinions of everyone on the Hilltop Views staff. This week’s editorial board is composed of Editor-in-Chief Jacob Rogers and Viewpoints Editors Sully Lockett and Kenny Phipps.

At Hilltop Views, our goal has evolved even as we remain committed to our original mission: reporting the news on the Hilltop without bias or error.

But now, it’s more than that. The world is a different place than it was 30 years ago, but in some ways, it’s exactly the same. Misinformation is still as damaging to democracy as it was then; it only gets produced and disseminated faster than ever now. It’s no longer enough just to be student journalists, playacting a role — with the world we live in, and the ability to look up anything we’ve ever written, we have to be journalists in our actions. We at Hilltop Views are committed to fact-based, informative reporting that will ultimately benefit the students and faculty here at St. Edward’s.

It is essential to any democratic environment, our university included, to maintain and support an independent press. At St. Edward’s, we haven’t always been the best at that. In fact, Hilltop Views was not a completely independent news source until relatively recently. But with the freedom to work independently comes the freedom to fail both the student body and ourselves without diligence, focus and hard work.

As we see in the world today, branches of government must operate independently of each other to ensure the fair and just operation of the government as a whole — it can’t just be a series of interlocking parts, all given their marching orders from the top. In the same way, the independence of the institution of journalism must also be assured for the smooth functioning of democracy.  Who else will expose corruption and failure when higher powers would sweep it into shadow? Who else will keep the electorate informed, so that they may make informed choices in voting for the future of the country?

It all starts here, on the Hilltop. We are working faithfully with you and for you to accurately tell the story of your university and of the world around us. As an independent student publication, our readers can be assured that our information is accurate, factual and timely, not subject to the whims of the administration, individual faculty members or anyone else. This is the most important aspect of our publication.

We pledge to report the news as faithfully as we know how, to be as fair as we can be and to keep the St. Edward’s community informed. We’ve been going strong for 30 years now, and with hard work and determination, we hope to serve you faithfully for another 30 plus.