The newspaper and media industry has been around for centuries with the goal of providing citizens the facts to help people view the world around them with more clarity. That industry has been rapidly changing, but still holds onto many of the traditional values and practices that it has had since it began.

As our student government electoral process calls for elections, The Suffolk Journal traditionally has chosen to endorse certain SGA candidates around election times. Members of The Journal, past and current, have signed onto these endorsements in past years.

Writers, reporters and journalists are not robots. We are people with feelings, biases and opinions.

However, this year, like the media industry as a whole, The Journal is changing: we will not be publishing or voicing any particular endorsement of any candidate as a collective staff.

We feel that this year, and likely going forward, we are choosing not to endorse any candidates as we believe it may hurt our objectivity. We also believe that the Suffolk community should use our news coverage, word-of-mouth and listening directly to the candidates to decide who they choose to support — not The Journal’s endorsement.

While we recognize that certain members of our staff may endorse or support specific candidates individually, The Journal, as a collective body “declines to comment,” so to speak, on who we support throughout the current SGA elections.

~The Suffolk Journal Staff