It always surprises me—probably because I live, breathe, and sleep Poly—how little the campus-at-large knows about The Poly and how it works. It seems to me we inform others of what we do.Then I remember——we’re in the business of publishing news, not our Poly life stories. But today, I’d like to give The Poly its due.
First, a little history. The Rensselaer Polytechnic was founded in 1885 as a scientific journal (think Popular Science, RPI style). By 1919 The Poly had matured into its present format of a weekly newspaper. It is one of the oldest continuously-operating college newspapers in the United States.
Wholly student-managed and operated, The Poly is currently run by a staff of approximately 30 very dedicated students, all volunteers. All revenue is generated by advertising; absolutely no money is obtained from Union subsidies or any other Institute-based source. This year’s budget tops $100,000.
Unique to RPI is the freedom of press, granted by the Board of Trustees in their Student Bill of Rights and by the Rensselaer Union in the Media Statement. This, in conjuction with our advertising-only revenue base, keeps The Poly free from any and all editorial influence and censorship from the Institute or any other party beyond its own student-manned Editorial Board.
There are four major sections in our newspaper: News, Editorial and Opinion, Features, and Sports.
News is generally self-explanatory. All of our reporters are bound to The Poly’s Code of Ethics which is based on the code used by the Associated Press. News stories are complete, balanced, and factual, and devoid of opinion and bias. The rest of the paper, however, allows and encourages opinion.
Features is the arts and entertainment section of The Poly, but also publishes human interest stories of significance to the RPI community, and all Features articles are presented as the opinion of the author.
Sports articles are about RPI sports, and occasionally sports on the national and international scene, but are written with the slant of the sports reporter.
EdOp, of course, is entirely opinion. The first page of EdOp is all Poly—in the upper left hand corner is the weekly Editorial Board statement, and the two articles on the right are Editorial Notebooks, written by individual Poly staff members. Letters to the Editor are published here in EdOp, as are Snapshots. Student government columns are also found here; they are a public service of The Poly, the space is donated to your elected officials.
It takes plenty of sweat and tears to make a Poly, and 30 people pour a lot of themselves into this newsprint and ink. We all have our reasons for doing it, not the least of which is to make a difference by giving students their very own loud, clear voice in the affairs of our campus and community. I know I speak for all of them when I tell you we take great pride in our work, and I am proud to serve with each and every one of them.
