With the creation of The Online Gargoyle, our school enters a new era in which student media will provide a platform for all who have the desire to make their voices heard.

The online version of the Gargoyle extends this platform not only to Gargoyle staff writers, but to every student in the Uni community. The site also allows parents, alumni, and people from around the world to take a glimpse inside of what is really going on at our school.

To help you better understand our approach to journalism, we offer this brief statement of our principles, based on the code of ethics adopted by the Society of Professional Journalists:

• We believe that a free press is essential to a self-governing society.
• We believe that a free student press is essential to any school dedicated to developing the habits of independent thought and action among its student body.
• We strive to practice journalism that is accurate, thorough, fair, transparent, and independent.
• We seek truth and report it.
• We strive to minimize the harm that could inadvertently be done in the pursuit of truth, treating our sources and the subjects of our stories with respect and empathy.
• We act independently but responsibly, knowing that freedom of the press is not a license for libel, personal attack, pointless obscenity, or reckless disregard for the facts.
• We hold ourselves accountable to our readers, inviting comments and corrections, and we admit our mistakes and correct them whenever they are brought to our attention.
• We strive to provide a public forum for the many voices and viewpoints that make up our school.
• We believe that a free exchange of ideas in the form of robust but respectful debate is the most effective way to pursue truth and cultivate the habits of independent thinking.

Aside from increased student interactivity with the Gargoyle, The OG allows staff writers to produce certain types of articles with greater frequency. The OG and the traditional Gargoyle complement one another to produce a more complete media source.

The OG will allow the students of Uni to contribute in a myriad of forms. All Uni students can instantly become an interactive part of the Gargoyle. They can submit articles to the online editors to be considered for publication, post discussion comments on articles produced by staff writers, or just pass along suggestions for future stories or site improvements.

The editors will review student work on a daily basis, so these submissions could be posted on the Web site the same day they are received by the editors.

All of these new features will make student contributions to the Gargoyle just a click away.

The editors encourage submissions about a broad variety of topics, but they will not accept material unfit for publication. The OG is a tremendous opportunity for students to better express themselves to their peers, and with this opportunity comes the responsibility to use this freedom of expression in a constructive way.

The OG also increases the ability of staff writers to produce up-to-date, relevant stories. The online sports, news, features, opinions, and entertainment sections will be updated much more frequently than is possible with the print version. Consequently our site will include exclusive online stories as well as articles already found in the print Gargoyle.

Many of the exclusive online articles will be shorter pieces written with an emphasis on getting the word out as quickly as possible, while maintaining the highest standards of accuracy and fairness.

This is all part of how the print and online versions will complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

The print version is logistically and aesthetically better suited for longer feature stories and in-depth packages that require intricate layout designs.

The strength of The OG is speed. Many newsworthy events occur weeks ahead of the print Gargoyle’s publication date, and by the time the paper comes out they are already old news. The Web site eliminates this delay factor.

The benefits of an online Gargoyle are clear. Now it’s the job of you, the reader, to get involved and make this vision come to life.