This Is How We Do It

The staff editorials that appear daily in these pages frequently call for greater openness and transparency on the part of the University’s administration. Yet feedback from our readers has convinced us that we ourselves have not been transparent, and most students know little of how these editorials are written. The Spectator’s daily staff editorials are produced by an editorial board whose sole purpose is to express its consensus views on issues of importance to the campus and Morningside Heights community.

The Columbia Daily Spectator is the daily newspaper of Columbia University, West Harlem, and Morningside Heights. As such, our editorials cover issues that pertain to campus life as well as city life. The editorial board—which writes these editorials—is comprised of 10 or 12 writers, drawn from Columbia’s four undergraduate schools and representing a diversity of backgrounds. The board is managed by the editorial page editor in conjunction with the deputy editorial board editor. None of these core members is simultaneously involved with Spectator’s News section. The board is rounded out by the editor in chief, managing editor, and publisher. At semiweekly meetings, board members discuss campus and community issues and come to a consensus as to how these issues should be addressed. Editorials espousing these consensus views are then written and edited collaboratively, and each is given a final read by the editor in chief or managing editor before publication.

Like its counterparts at other newspapers, the Spectator’s editorial board has put in place several protocols to ensure that its published opinions are free of bias. Spectator enforces a strict separation between its News and Opinion sections to prevent news coverage from influencing editorial coverage, and vice versa. The core editorial board members—the writers, as well as the opinion and deputy editors—are kept in the dark as to what will appear in the next day’s News section, and the editorial board decides its weekly topics without interference from the rest of the newspaper. The policy, in short, mitigates conflicts of interest within the Spectator as an institution. When personal conflicts of interest arise, board members are expected to recuse themselves from the writing and discussion of editorials. In the coming week, by way of full disclosure, the editorial board will post online biographies detailing each board member’s academic and extracurricular ties.

Despite its isolation from news coverage, the editorial board articulates the voice of the Spectator. Much of the time, that voice will coincide with opinions widely held among the University’s undergraduates. Sometimes, our published views will diverge from those of a majority of our peers. We do not exist merely to echo prevailing student sentiment. But we are students, first and foremost, and we offer a student perspective on the issues of the day. We are mindful both of those who are affected by our editorials and of those whom we purport to represent. We aim to contribute to debates on and off campus, to call for policy change where change is needed, and to support our fellow students when they are in the right.