As the new viewpoints editor, I felt it would be important to introduce myself. In my opinion, journalists should do four things when engaging the public on any type of story. First, they should gather the facts of the event. For most news networks, this is done with ease. Secondly, they should research the topic. Again, this is easy.

The third and fourth steps are what seems to impede any type of neutrality that networks claim to have. Reporters should inform the public on the basic facts before inserting their slant, or outright opinion. The fourth step would be to go in depth with the story to let the reader form their own opinion of the subject.

The failure to let the reader form their own opinion is dangerous. For example, the witch hunt that followed the Arizona shootings led viewers to believe Sarah Palin was responsible for Jared Lee Loughner's actions. Anyone with a brain knows that this moron chose to attack innocents on his own accord. An advertisement by a political action committee with some graphics did not motivate him.

Crazy people like Loughner will always exist, but instead of letting the public see this, large media outlets use their forum as a political machine. This is true for Democrats and Republicans. Palin responded to the debacle with what was a honest and true response, although it was ill-timed and misguided.

It seems that what we are witnessing is a change from a system of news networks that people watched to trust, to one that insists upon changing the views of its readers. I read a study once for a political science contract that showed readers tend to not only believe what the news tells them, but rarely believe any argument against what they heard originally.

Mainstream news needs to harken back to their introductory reporting classes and leave the thinking to the public. Straying from this leads to misinformation, and important stories being left off the news reel and a more divided government.

My goal in my tenure as a member of any news organizations, including the Houstonian, is to keep news and opinions separate. Opinions should present a different side of an argument that individuals may not have thought of. It should not be a main source of information.

I want this page to serve as a place for students to speak their mind on current events of the campus or the world and, of course the occasional rant on how squirrels will eventually take over the human population.