We take the College Park City Council election seriously at The Diamondback. We’ve written many articles on it already and will write many more. Our tone will likely criticize student turnout for being low; even if four times as many students vote this year than in 2007 — as the Student Government Association predicts — that would still represent a tiny fraction of the student population here. On the city election day in 2007, our staff editorial implored students in giant type simply to “GO VOTE!”
But is the staff at The Diamondback planning to lead by example? Not really.
Our editor in chief forgot to register his address change before yesterday’s deadline. So did our managing editor and one of two reporters who will be covering the election. The other election reporter didn’t know she would have needed to report a new address. (It’s not as if we wrote about it or anything.) Our news and photo editors are registered at home instead of in College Park. Our deputy Diversions editor is registered but won’t vote because he doesn’t plan to follow the election.
Our staff hero is our “features enterprise” reporter, who is correctly registered AND plans to vote. She also understands complex city issues perfectly — after all, she reads all the newspapers and can see District 2 Councilman Bob Catlin from her house.
She’s correctly registered because unlike so many of us at The Diamondback and on campus in general, she hasn’t moved since the last election.
Summer Raza, who organized the SGA’s voter registration drive, said “most” SGA members are now correctly registered to vote in College Park. If so, theirs is a better example to follow than ours — it definitely is important to vote for the people who will be setting the rules about how you can park and determine how much you will be fined when you’re noisy.
But next time you hear someone suggest that the media is out of touch with the everyman, you can know that The Diamondback will be sitting out the City Council election with you.