Thank you.
Yesterday, you, the student body, overwhelmingly chose to continue supporting the Daily Nebraskan as your paper.
Even though the ASUN elections were uncontested and there may have been little apparent reason for students to take time out of their day to vote, thousands of you felt the existence of the paper was an important issue. By a vote of 2,227 for and 827 against, nearly 73 percent, the Daily Nebraskan will continue to receive support from student fees.
It's been a stressful week for the DN staff. We've spent the last few days trying to get out the message, informing students how the paper is paid for and what is at stake if we lose your support. After a semester of minor controversies and a small but vocal minority calling for our funds to be cut, winning the election was never guaranteed. Newspapers around the country have been contracting or going out of business, and there was a good possibility we were next in line. Plus, last year the DN received 51 percent of the vote in favor of keeping funds. The trends did not appear to be in our favor.
But the trends reversed. All thanks to you.
The DN staff would especially like to thank those who helped spread the word about the vote, including ASUN President Justin Solomon and ASUN Sen. Sarah Williams, who publicly provided their support in Wednesday's paper. This overwhelming majority vote is a mandate from the student body to continue doing our best. But we don't see it as a time to celebrate, but as a reason to continue improving and make a better product relevant to you.
But again, thanks to you, we will be back next year.
opinion@dailynebraskan.com
is a member of the 
3 comments
With the thousands of dollars you make in advertising to help support your operation and -- let's face it -- the number of completely disposable staff members you employ -- you would have found a way to balance the budget and start using a new business model. But heaven forbid that anything change for you or anything gets difficult. After all, you're only students, you're allowed to make mistakes over and over without punishment and everyone should just cut you some slack. Ok, Lindsay Lohan -- I mean, the Daily Nebraskan.For the past week, the DN has been the whiniest bunch of people I've ever had the displeasure of having to hear.
According to the figures cited in your own articles, 3,054 students voted yesterday out of a student body totaling more than 22,748, and yet you claim an "overwhelming majority vote" as a mandate from the student body? As a political science major, I make jokes about my not being able to do math, but even I know that if 2,227 votes out of more than 22,748 possible votes were in your favor, that is not overwhelming, it is not even a majority. It is not even 10%! And winning any election when there only 13% of the voters turn out is, well, questionable. (Other's who win with 13% of the electorate showing up include Hosni Mubarak). Do I think you guys are going to get overthrown? Probably not. Apathy is far too high on this campus to bother doing so.
As you acknowledged, now is not the time to celebrate a victory, its a time to improve. Here's my suggestion to you guys (and I'll probably send this bit in as a letter to the editor, because I know DN writers who hate reading their online comments): find an Ombudsman, and have them write a bi-weekly column.