Speak up and be heard ““ Viewpoint wants your words
By Samuel Sukaton
Sept. 21, 2009 9:15 a.m.
Lend us your ears ““ and your voices.
Viewpoint wants your talents. You’re interesting. If you’re a first-year fresh out of high school, we want you. If you’re a transfer or an upperclassman, we want you. If you’re a sixth-year super-duper senior or a graduate student, yes, we want you, too.
The pages before you feature people with names and titles and official pictures like the chancellor, the Undergraduate Students Association Council and Student Alumni Association presidents, and my boss, Millie. Talent doesn’t always have to do with titles, though. I hope that many of you, regardless of who you are or where you’re from, come to Viewpoint.
Viewpoint is home to some of the best writers and strongest opinions at UCLA. While newspapers always seek to enlighten and educate, it’s our hope that we can entertain you, as well, with interesting, or infuriating, arguments about everything that matters to students.
Sometimes we get stuck in what we want to say ““ columns about Facebook, health care or budget cuts, for example. No conversation stays interesting without new things ““ new ideas, new talkers, new subjects.
That’s where you come in.
Viewpoint is making a few changes this year, all aimed at getting your attention and involvement. We’re continuing last year’s Community Viewpoint, an extra half-page for letters and submissions from members of the UCLA community.
If you’ve got something to say, or if you’d like to respond to something in the paper, send an e-mail to
Letters are 200-300 words and are direct responses to something recently published in the Daily Bruin. Submissions are 400-600 words and can be about anything you feel is important to students. We can’t publish everything we get, but we’ll try. Send us mail. We love mail.
We’re expanding Viewpoint content to video. Be sure to check out Daily Bruin Video. We love giving you as much commentary as possible ““ when you’re online, on your iPod when walking to class or looking at the paper.
We’re creating blogs on the Daily Bruin Web site for all of our columnists. They’ll be using these to play with ideas that might become columns, continue ideas published in previous columns, and work on projects with each other.
UCLA students and faculty will be able to comment on these blogs, giving you more access to our staff and more opportunities to say things that don’t necessarily fit into Community Viewpoint. We love the Internet ““ we can hear from you faster. It’s just as awesome as mail.
Check out our Facebook page. We know you’re on Facebook. So are we. Tell us how we’re doing and propose ideas for the section. Check out the rest of the Daily Bruin sections online while you’re at it. We love Facebook about as much as we love the rest of the Internet.
Finally, you can get involved the old-fashioned way ““ by applying to work for us. We’re looking for writers and cartoonists with interesting opinions and interesting ways of expressing them. You don’t have to be studying writing or art.
You don’t even have to want to be a journalist. We want talent and passion, and we know those things aren’t limited to certain majors or classes. We love paper applications more than Facebook. So go to apply.studentmedia.ucla.edu and download an application.
Even if you’re not interested in any of the options above, keep reading. You’re pretty smart, or else you’d be at USC. Read Viewpoint, find a columnist or an issue that speaks to you, and talk to us if you have any ideas, questions or comments. We love readers. Love for readers got us into this business in the first place.
Just like the Seattle hip-hop duo Blue Scholars say, “Whatever you do, whatever you say, step up front.”
UCLA is the place to “step up front” with your talents and convictions. We hope we can help.
Sukaton is the 2009-2010 assistant Viewpoint editor. E-mail him at [email protected]. Send general comments to [email protected].
