To incoming first-year students and those transferring from elsewhere, welcome to USM. To everyone else, welcome back.
As the student newspaper of the University of Southern Maine, we are independent of the administration; no one ‘signs off’ on what we publish. Our aim is to provide news and commentary USM students want to read and watch.
To be more transparent with our readers — the USM student citizenry who, in part, fund our operations — we have set up a blog to promote an active dialogue about our coverage.
Have a gripe or a question for one of our editors or reporters? This is the place to sound off.
The purpose of this blog is really to provide a way for our readers to interact with our staff and become part of the news-gathering process. You can still write a letter to the editor, if you’re so inclined, but consider The Blotter a place for discussion. In addition, we encourage you to ‘like’ us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter, both of which we update throughout the day with breaking news.
We’ll also be posting our budget (the list of stories we’re working on for the next edition) on this blog. If you have any leads or ideas, or if you’re a student and want to report something or have an idea for a story, comment on The Blotter or send one of the editors an e-mail.
We’ll also probably use The Blotter to share things that maybe don’t qualify as ‘hard news’, as well as providing previews of upcoming stories. We plan to keep it pretty loose and open.
We have plenty of room at the Free Press if you’re interested in writing, taking photos, shooting and editing video or designing content for the Web. E-mail [email protected] if you’re interested.
I look forward to working with you.
Dan MacLeod
Executive Editor
(207) 615-6652 (cell)