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Reading this means that you are in the Opinion’s section of the newspaper. I truly hope you continue to read this section and the entire paper throughout the semester.

Through these opinions, The Lion’s Roar staff has a chance to voice their opinion on various topics unlike the rest of the paper where we report facts and unbiased stories to the best of our ability. But, it is also a time when we seek the voice of those throughout the university. 

For most production weeks, someone on staff will go on campus and ask those willing to answer a question. Some of those answers are then put into our Speak Out section, which is to the right of this opinion.

This section is meant to give the university student’s body a chance to voice their personal thoughts. Though our staff picks the question that is asked, we do not tell people how to answer. 

Through my years on staff, I have seen my fair share of answers, and one of the problems that seems to come up more than it should is when we have to pick certain pictures over the best answers, so no one becomes offended by the section being dominated by one ethnicity or gender.

What I mean by this is that I find it absurd that my generation, as well as the generation after me, has to worry about whom they may offend when picking which pictures end up in Speak Out over the responses themselves. 

I do not believe that those on the newspaper staff should have to worry if someone may get offended because all the people chosen are one race, gender, ethnicity or any other social construct that has been created in society.

Before I worked on the newspaper staff, the first section of the paper I read was opinions. I not only enjoyed seeing what those who worked on the paper before me believed in, I enjoyed reading the short blurbs of those picked for Speak Out. I would be ecstatic when I would see someone’s picture that I knew. 

Now that I am the Opinion’s Editor, one of my responsibilities is to work on the Speak Out section, and I want to say it now rather than later, “When I pick the quotes that are used, I am not looking at the picture of the people who answered. I am looking for the best, most relevant answers.”

We will always ask more people than we can put in the paper in case something happens where we can’t use a picture or if more than one person gives us the same answer. We are not being prejudice or trying to emphasize one race, gender, et cetera over another. We are picking the answers that we believe are most relevant for the college campus.

So if one week you see photos that are all the same race or gender in Speak Out, please do not think we are trying to be bias. We are simply trying to produce a paper for the college campus without having to walk on eggshells.