Unbought, Unbossed, Unbiased

I know it's been a while since you all have heard from me, and I hope that you all have missed me as much as I have you. I am happy too report that The Hilltop is doing a much better job.  There are, however a few areas of concern.

First, I would like to remark on the fact that two Mondays ago, the name of this column was spelled "Unbought, Unbossed, Unbaised." I'm not quite sure what "unbaised" is, but I can assure you that I'm not that. I opened the paper and simply could not believe that such a careless mistake had made print.  Moving along.

I dealt with a lot of outcry from students who did not necessarily agree with The Hilltop's choice of a cartoon to run with the staff editorial on overrides. I will agree that the cartoon was a bit unfounded and borderline offensive with its depiction of real life individuals. In that same breath, I must also acknowledge the fact that the cartoon did its job; it called attention to a hot button, taboo issue.

There is a certain group of people that get away with a lot of things that the normal student could not, and for once the joke was on them and they started to feel some type of way. Journalism takes no sides and its only loyalty is to the pursuit of truth and right.

Another thing that concerns me is that there were nine house advertisements in Thursday's paper. When The Hilltop made this 2-day print schedule and made the paper smaller, it was largely expected that each paper would come equipped with more, better content.  But we are continuing to see the same old tired stories. Spice it up, Hilltop.

It is also perfectly transparent when certain writers only quote certain fraternity and sorority members, or students in a certain school or college. The Hilltop's staff writers MUST do better about going out and doing actual reporting as opposed to quoting their friends and calling it journalism.

I would like to commend the staff on the noticeable decline on spelling and grammatical errors, but would like to raise one point that came across my desk. The photographs in the paper are sometimes a little bit too dark to get the full effect, and that is a simple fix.  I don't know if anyone else has realized, or cares, but the headlines have gotten much better at catching readers' eyes.  Most particularly, the story with the headline "Mayorial Forecast: Cloudy with a Chance of Gray" was very reader-friendly and eye catching. The only issue is that "mayorial" is not a word. The correct word to use would have been "mayoral."

The new HU Guide section is a definite plus.  It makes The Hilltop look a lot better and it offers the opportunity for more organizations to advertise. I was contacted by a 1984 alumna who said that she was impressed by the way that the Hilltopics (HU Guide) looked because when she was here they were boring and outdated.

Which brings me to my next point: alumni relations. A couple weeks back, I was contacted by an angry alum that insisted that he had not seen a change in The Hilltop. Last Friday evening, that same gentleman reached out and told me that in his HU Alumni Association meeting, the new Hilltop was all a buzz. The new site offers more alumni the chance to stay connected to campus; and that's all they really want.

For those of you who have not been utilizing www.TheHilltopOnline.com, you have been seriously missing out.  The online content is now updated more frequently, AND there is even a games tab with Pacman and the ever-popular Sudoku. You cried out and The Hilltop listened. The interactive site is making strides toward becoming a 24-hour media source as it said it would be.

So there you have it.