It feels like it’s the end of the world, but we promise you — it’s not.
We are in the midst of a global pandemic, wondering what’s next. USF has moved all classes online, the dorms have closed, and the student body is now dispersed across the world.
Despite this, we at the Foghorn believe it is our civic duty to continue reporting and being a voice to the student body. So that is our commitment to you. We will keep the community informed and connected, even from hundreds of miles away. Our mission as journalists remains constant: to report and inform with honesty and integrity. We will continue to share University-related, local, and national news, along with scene, opinion, and sports pieces. We will be publishing our weekly issues on our website and work to create more online-exclusive content.
We feel incredibly lucky to have so many technological resources to be able to continue doing our job. From Zoom meetings to Google Drive to our website, the staff is able to work together to communicate and produce content. The Foghorn has not missed an issue since World War II, when there was a shortage of news print — and we don’t plan on missing one now. If anything, the fact that we are all remote and dispersed calls for a greater need to be connected to campus since so many are located far away and feel severed from the community.
This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience — we will likely never see something like this again, or at least, we hope not. Now more than ever, it is important to document what is happening in the world, and what is happening to USF students. We urge our readers to continue to educate themselves and keep up with what’s going on. We also encourage you to consider writing during this historic time.
With that being said, we want to acknowledge that some media coverage has been inconsistent and hyperbolic. We hope to cover each issue professionally and accurately, with care and precision. We don’t want to sensationalize and dramatize what is happening, but we want to make sure that we are accurately relaying all the facts. As USF’s student newspaper since 1903, we’re responsible for investigating these questions and finding answers for our community members — our work is particularly crucial now, especially since our community looks to us as a source of news they can trust.
Of course, we won’t just be covering content related to COVID-19 in this period — USF continues to exist amidst this pandemic. Arguably, now that most of the community is away from campus, it’s especially important for us to be keeping an eye on the University, as most students, faculty, and staff are no longer able to see what’s happening for themselves.
We also will continue to be a space that fosters a sense of connection and work to cover how on-campus groups and clubs are continuing to function during this time. Sections like scene and sports will continue to live on as athletes and students continue to process their canceled events and make do with their given circumstances.
USF continues to affect a lot of areas of our lives — the most obvious being that we still have classes and assignments and are still paying tuition. Because of this, students, faculty, and staff still deserve a place to share their unique perspectives and frustrations, and the Foghorn’s opinion section is the platform that most people at USF turn to.
We recognize that these are stressful and confusing times for the entire community, and there is a lot of fear and anxiety circling around. It is crucial that the Foghorn continues to stand as an institution that the community can turn to for answers and clarification, as well as a platform that celebrates USF’s vibrant campus — even from afar.
