Dear Ithaca College community,

The new year and new semester is a time of reflection and reinvigoration. Many of us choose to form new friendships, join new organizations, reevaluate our habits and set goals.

In this new year, The Ithacan is building on our commitment to provide informative and innovative community journalism. We are introducing new initiatives to strengthen our relationships with our Ithaca College and broader Ithaca communities and understand how we can better serve our community members.

We’re in a time of great change in the media industry, with historically low levels of trust in the mass media. About half of U.S. citizens feel that national news sources do not care about their audiences’ best interests, and 52% of citizens believe national news sources intentionally mislead and misinform the public. About 74% of Americans feel that the news media increases polarization and division. 

Amidst these grave challenges facing the industry, we want to be a news source that our community can depend on. 

We want to provide reliable, accurate, independent, fair coverage that reflects your needs and interests and makes your voices heard. We hope to build relationships with our community members and understand how we can better serve you. We want to know when our coverage has met your needs and when it has fallen short. 

We’re working to increase opportunities to get to know our staff members and share feedback about our coverage. In Fall 2024, we held our first ever open office event, which invited campus community members to meet with our staff and editorial board, share feedback about our coverage, learn about our reporting process and make suggestions about stories that we should cover. 

During the spring semester, we will host more open offices and table in locations around campus to offer more opportunities to get to know our team and share feedback about our coverage. 

We will also launch a form on our website to share feedback about our reporting and interactions with our staff, and suggestions for future coverage. 

As a reminder, our office is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Fridays if you want to stop in. We’re always available at [email protected] or at the emails listed on our staff profiles on our website. 

In 2025, we’re also working to increase transparency and share more information about our mission, ethics and approach to reporting. Our new community guide, which launched last week, outlines our policies, reporting processes and ethical standards. We also include answers to common questions we receive. We hope this guide provides more insight into our reporting decisions and helps you feel more prepared to engage with our staff. 

We want you to see yourselves in our coverage. We want our reporting to provide answers to your questions. We want to treat your stories with care and accurately represent your voices. We want you to feel comfortable coming to us with feedback and suggestions for coverage. Above all, we want to earn your trust and report for you. 

Our community is our purpose, and we hope these initiatives will allow us to better serve you. 

Thank you so much,

Kai Lincke ’26

Community Outreach Manager