How It Happens

Various undergraduates from time to time have wanted to know how this paper's editorial policy is determined. For them, and for anybody else who happens to care, this editorial is written.

On all major controversial issues, policy is determined by a majority vote of the entire staff. In the past, such issues have been the Truman Doctrine, and Truman's request for a draft. Another will be the choice of a presidential candidate.

The vote is taken at a meeting of the full board, called especially to discuss the issue. Discussions last between two and three hours, and occasionally members of the faculty are invited to sit in as consultants. The arguments of the side that wins the vote are presented in the editorial: but if the vote is close, the writer attempts to present the stand moderately.

When the issue is less controversial or less important, policy is determined by a majority vote of the people present at an "editorial policy" meeting. These include everybody on the editorial board and anyone else on the paper who happens to be interested in showing up. Sometimes the issue is minor, and only a handful are present. More often--on subjects like the War Memorial, or the tuition boost, or the HAA's seating system--anywhere from fifteen to twenty-five people appear. Usually at least one or two of them are particularly well-informed on the subject at hand, having discussed it with Dean Bender, or Director of Athletics Bingham, or whoever the reigning authority happens to be. This helps to make the discussions more than bull sessions.

Many editorials never come up before policy meetings. If an editorial is printed backing a drive for blood donors, don't think it is the product of furious discussions. If five hundred students are given sleeping bags and told to live in the Common when the Houses are three-quarters empty, there is no meeting. Just a swift but thorough investigation, and a thundering editorial.