A modest beginning

Welcome, Tufts Daily readers!

Today's journalistic landscape is a bold world in which anyone with a word processor and a modem (though wireless helps) can participate in the dissemination of news, for better or for worse, in the digital universe known as the "blogosphere."

In the Daily, we've reported on blogs with the distance, care -- and occasionally, wonderment -- that print journalists tend to employ when addressing new technology. We've covered blogs' effect on journalism and politics. We've analyzed their growing influence and questioned their credibility. This semester, we wrote about their effect on a more local level, interviewing students about Tufts' own anonymous campus blogs.

But as Tufts' newspaper of record, we have the opportunity -- and in fact the responsibility -- to not only report on the changing face of journalism, but to help define it as well. Blogs, like everything on the Internet, are fluid and dynamic. We can help decide what a newsblog is -- at least within the bubble of Tufts' campus.

While some of our other blogs will feature extended coverage, analysis, opinions, musings and other insight from our staff and the community, this space will serve a different purpose: to break down barriers. As a group of students who spend most of our time (we're talking up to 12 hours per day!) in the windowless basement of Curtis Hall, we may not always seem accessible. And as students of journalism -- not yet professionals -- we make our share of questionable decisions (and even ::gasp:: mistakes).

This blog aims to increase our transparency and connect us more directly to our readers. It will include background information on our reporting, explanations of some of our more prominent editorial decisions and features on members of our staff -- everything about how the Daily is made. So read, learn, comment and criticize -- and help us by being active participants in the news process.