1. General

a. Editorial Board is a class. All members must attend: including adviser, or his/her designee.

b. Attendance is critical, if board members are absent three or more times they will give up their vote on editorial board decisions, but must still attend. This includes the editor-in-chief.

c. If a member of the editorial board is on assignment --press junkets, extended student government meetings-- the editor-in-chief or adviser, or his/her designee, must be contacted at least 30 minutes prior to the meeting.

i. iIf editors are more than 10 minutes late for a meeting without prior approval for newspaper business, they will lose their vote on matters before the board during that meeting.

d. The editorial board must discuss editorials, columns, cartoons and other editorial content at board meetings.

e. Letters to the editor pertaining to a news story, feature, sports or columns will be handled by the editor-in-chief and the opinion editor, letters pertaining to editorials will be handled at the discretion of the editorial board.

f. Members of the editorial board may not write editorials on subject matter they are closely related to such as clubs or student government.

2. Membership

a. The Editorial Board is composed of the editor-in-chief, all section editors, the editor of the on-line newspaper, the magazine editor, the radio news director and associate editors.

b. Any non-members of the staff may attend Editorial Board meetings, but they shall not have a vote.

3. Responsibilities of board members

a. Attendance at Editorial Board meetings is mandatory. It is the responsibility of the board member to inform the Editorial in Chief of an anticipated absence.

b. Board members must present editorial premises on a regular basis. The board will assign the writing of editorials based on an approved premise.

c. Coming into a meeting emotionally set on an opinion is not desirable. Background information is essential on all issues to be discussed.

4. Editorial Board responsibilities

a. Conduct of Editorial Board meetings shall be professional at all times.

b. The Editorial Board enjoys wide freedom of choice of editorial topics. All subjects must be investigated before publication is allowed.

c. While the Talon Marks reserves the right to criticize, all sides should be discussed before criticism is published.

d. Inaccuracies and misstatements of fact should not be part of the Talon Marks whether these appear in news stories, columns, editorials or cartoons. Therefore, statements made as fact that are false, inaccurate and/or misleading should be omitted, or the item should not run until corrected. Clarification's and/or apologies will be published when appropriate and as soon as possible.

e. The Editorial Board determines the print worthiness of all materials questionable from the standpoint of obscenity, taste and/or libel with the final decision reserved to the editor-in-chief. The Talon Marks does not print profanity for profanity's sake. Good taste shall be the guideline. Where profanity is used in quotes and/or contributes significantly to the feeling of the statement, its use shall be permitted. A definition of good taste is established by the editorial board.

f. The Editorial Board will not print libel. No libelous statements in editorials or columns, or libelous drawings or photos, shall appear in the Talon Marks.

g. The Editorial Board will consider complaints and grievances leveled at the Talon Marks from both inside and outside sources.

h. All editors are responsible in seeing that the newsroom is run in a professional manner.

5. Voting

a. A voting quorum is 2/3 of the membership.

b. Each member of the Editorial Board has one vote unless otherwise noted. The adviser, or his/her designee, have no vote. A member may vote "yes," "no" or "abstain."

c. An editor may give his or her assistant editor a proxy vote in the event of an anticipated absence.

i. Proxies will be written and shall include the following information: the names of the editor and assistant editor or approved proxy, the date and any instructions to vote in a particular way on an issue.

ii. An approved proxy must attend the designated meeting.

d. An Editorial Board decision requires a majority vote, unless otherwise specified hereinafter.

e. A two-thirds affirmative vote of the editorial board is required for editorial passage.

i. If an editorial is defeated, a pro-con column may result.

ii. Representatives from each side of the issue will be assigned to write the columns.

f. Editorials are best discussed and voted upon during an Editorial Board meeting.

g. The editor-in-chief has the power to override any vote and all decisions of the editorial board.

6. Confidentiality

a. All proceedings of the Editorial Board and the Talon Marks staff are strictly confidential and shall not be discussed with the individuals who are not members of the Talon Marks staff.

b. No Editorial Board member or Talon Marks staffer shall indicate to non-staffers his/her non-agreement with Editorial Board or with decisions of the editorial staff.

c. If a staffer is approached by someone expressing dissatisfaction with an editorial stand or with the treatment of news, the staffer shall refer the critic to the editor-in-chief or suggest that the critic write a letter to the editor or a guest column.

7. Editorials

a. All editorials must be produced for presentation to each member of Editorial Board. A copy, if already written, should be made for all members of the editorial board, including adviser, or his/her designee.

b. Any staff writer may be assigned to write an editorial to be considered by Editorial Board for publication.

c. Guest columns are accepted but may be edited for space and content, they will not be guaranteed to be published.

d. The author of an editorial must be present at Editorial Board when the editorial is being discussed.

e. Discussion of editorial ideas is confidential. The editorial represents the viewpoint of the paper (even should there be differing viewpoints to the editorial's passage) and is unsigned.

f. The name of the editorial writer shall not be made public except in cases of competition.

g. Strong differing ideas and opinions about editorial issues may be used as a basis for pro/con columns.

a. The staff box will always run.

b. Conflicts among columns, letters and/or editorials caused by space limitations on the opinion page shall be resolved by the editor-in-chief and the opinion editor or production editor.

i. In general, letters should have priority over all other items on the opinion page.

ii. Columns and letters may be run on news pages depending on circumstances and at the discretion of the editor-in-chief as long as they are clearly labeled.

c. All art expressing an opinion come before the editor-in-chief and the production editor or opinion editor.

d. The opinion page is the result of the effort of the entire Editorial Board and not of the opinion editor alone.

9. Editorial Board procedures

a. Attendance is mandatory and roll will be called at every meeting.

b. The editor-in-chief is responsible for seeing that minutes of board meetings are kept, approved by the board, and filed.

c. Editorials must be edited by the editor-in-chief and/or the opinion editor before the editorial is reproduced and presented to Editorial Board, unless otherwise discussed by the board at a previous meeting.

d. No more than one half an hour of each Editorial Board meeting may be devoted to one topic of discussion, editorial or outside speaker.

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