The Globe exists to bring facts to light, report on the news happening around campus and in Downtown and to highlight good stories in that same area. These are clear-cut goals we have set because ultimately, that’s what a good newspaper should do.

While we may also introduce people to new businesses, show what’s going on with a club or post advertisements paid for by a business or campus organization, that’s not why we exist.

Let us make something clear – The Globe is not a place solely for “puff pieces” on anything from restaurants around town or clubs on campus. We encourage positive content in the features section as well as in our arts and entertainment section, but just saying something exists is not newsworthy on its own.

Club leaders, consider advertising with us. We provide an outlet for you to send out your graphics, officers and social media handles to the student body. If someone involved has lots to say about why their club matters and deserves new members, our opinions section is a good fit for this.

But what cannot happen is someone involved with a club trying to write news pieces about themselves. Advertising is not free, and it is not The Globe’s responsibility to bring people to a club if nothing noteworthy is happening in it.

We will always encourage people, especially those involved with clubs on campus and with a pulse on what’s going on Downtown, to give us article pitches to take on that may include information known directly from being part of a club or working at a certain place.

However, someone in that position cannot write about something they are directly involved in.

Content written about a club by a member of said club is a major conflict-of-interest. These need to be avoided at all costs in journalistic writing because it implies that a publication endorses what is being written about.

To be clear, we do not endorse specific clubs one should join beyond basic recommendations to get involved with the campus that surrounds us all and to join student media if you hope to be in the industry. No one club deserves more attention than the other, and we do not exist to only uplift certain organizations or groups of people.

This expands to off-campus as well – we do not exist for students to write positively or negatively about the place they work for, and we do not exist to only paint anything in a “good” or “bad” light. We are supposed to show things as they are, but it’s impossible to be fair if someone who is trying to write about something has a significant stake in it.

Consider this example: would it be sensible for a student who works at a certain restaurant and hates their job to write a piece detailing the supposed problems of said restaurant? No. It is not reasonable, sensible nor fair.

These are not new rules for The Globe either. For example, members of The Globe who are also involved with Student Government Association (SGA) cannot write about SGA. The same is true for any organization, and writers will recuse themselves from pitches including organizations they have direct involvement with.

Like it or not, we are a real newspaper. Because of that, we will follow the rules and guidelines that any other legitimate news organization would. Journalists do not write about things they have direct involvement with, and this includes student journalists as well.