MEADOR: Varying views support free press, give students voice

In late December, a controversial new amendment was passed in Kenya severely curbing the rights of the east African nation's media to cover national events. According to an allafrica.com column by Joyce Mulama, the Kenya Communications Bill gives the Kenyan government the right to invade media houses, seize broadcast equipment, control broadcast content and even take stations off the air.


Similar measures also have been passed in Uganda and Tanzania in recent years, and the repression in Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe makes these more moderate bills sound like the First Amendment. But sub-Saharan Africa isn't the only place where free speech has been curbed in recent years. Vladimir Putin's Russia has seen a tremendous reduction in many of the free speech liberties extended after the fall of the Soviet state in 1991.


Why do I say all this? Because for all this nation's many, many flaws, the lack of a free press isn't one of them.


This semester, we'll continue to practice these rights here at the Daily Nebraskan. And we'll do it for a broad readership. In fact, with a distribution of 10,000, we're the fifth most distributed paper in the state of Nebraska, trailing only the Lincoln Journal Star, the Omaha World-Herald, the North Platte Telegraph and the Grand Island Independent. Additionally, our Web site receives 4,000-5,000 hits daily.


Specifically, as the opinion staff, we'll continue to do our best to provide salient commentary on current events in Nebraska, in the United States and abroad. Our goal is to be the kind of section you can't wait to read every weekday morning to see the latest work from our various staff members.


But more than that, we want this to be your section. As is always the case, we want your letters and Web comments. We want to offer you the same broad dissemination of your ideas that our writers enjoy on a weekly basis.


We also want some of you to write for us. As of now, we have eight full-time columnists, which is not even enough for two columns every day without having one of our already-busy college student columnists write twice a week.


So if you have opinions and want to express them, apply to join us. If you love language and want to develop yourself as a writer, apply to join us. It doesn't matter if you're inexperienced; you have to start somewhere. We'd love for that somewhere to be at the Daily Nebraskan.


Additionally, part of being your paper means we accurately represent you.


According to the Princeton Review, UNL has the 20th most conservative student body in the country. But you wouldn't guess it from looking at a typical Daily Nebraskan opinion section.


For whatever reason, the DN op-ed section has traditionally drawn out droves of young leftists, who favor everything from stricter gun control, the removal of all restrictions on abortion, affirmative action or greater governmental involvement in the economy.


Dissenting voices – the loyal NRA member, the staunchly pro-life activist or hardline libertarian – have generally been few and far between.


The consequence is that we've developed a certain reputation on campus for being innately liberal, which, though understandable, is not necessarily fair. We can only publish the people who take the time to apply to write for us. And for whatever reason, those who apply are generally left-of-center.


That's something we want to change. If you're a conservative reading this and you've thought about writing for us in the past but opted not to, I'm asking you to reconsider. We want your voice in our section.


In fact, we need your voice in our section.


As the semester progresses, we want to improve individually as writers and become more diverse as a section. The staff we currently have is going to do everything in our power to achieve those goals. But we need you to help us out. So write, apply or comment. Just do something.


We've got a free press, so let's use it.


Jake Meador is the opinion editor of the spring 2009 Daily Nebraskan. He is a junior English and history major.