Letter to the editor

Dear Editors:

Hello my name is Joshua Duke and I'd like to start by saying I really do enjoy reading the Pat Press. However it could use some tweaking: for instance coming out once a week or even twice a month.

When I walk around campus I see many copies still not taken up by anyone and then I wonder if I'm a member of a small group of people that actually reads it.

That's where the first suggestion comes in. Take a moment to figure out what the students want to read about: advice columns, reviews, upcoming events, articles, short stories and poetry.

Cater to the masses; they will read if you write about it. Also have a section that shows student submitted artwork as well as an entertainment section on movies, TV shows and music.

My biggest interest however lies in the (or lack there of) sports section. Yes it is all well and good to cover the school teams during their seasons but what about other sports when baseball, basketball, softball, tennis and swimming aren't in season.

Cover football. Cover the Jags, Dolphins and Bucs. Cover the Gators, Canes and Noles year round. Cover the Magic, Heat, Rays, Marlins, Lightning, and Panthers.

Give us a dose of the NFL, NBA, MLB, MLS, NHL, NCAAM basketball, NCAAW basketball, BCS, and all the draft and trade, injury action that goes with it.


Dear Joshua:

First of all we would like to thank you for taking the time to read and critique our paper. We greatly appreciate the feedback.

In regards to your suggestion to include more of what students want to read, we have to find a balance between entertainment based articles and news.

As far as the short stories and poetry goes, the Patriot Press is a newspaper, and these forms of writing are not suitable for a paper.

Most people do not understand the set-up of our paper.

In order to be published in the Patriot Press, a student must be enrolled in JOU2100 (introduction to journalism). If a student displays outstanding work, reliability and talent, he/she may be asked back to be a student editor.

In order to come back as an editor, the student must enroll in the class again and also be involved in the club. At that point, editors have the opportunity to expand their writing: columns, reviews and opinion pieces.

However, the majority of our stories come from students new to the class. These students are limited to writing news stories (without opinion) in order to practice what they are learning.

As for the sports suggestions, since we have a limited amount of space, we prefer to run stories that directly relate to CFCC.

With that being said, we do now have a Web site with unlimited space. More of a variety of stories are available there.

Thank you for writing,

Katie Greene and Ashton McLeod
Co-Editors-In-Chief