Dear Statesman readers,

In the past, there has been a bit of confusion surrounding opinion articles released in both the paper and the online editions of the Statesman.

To clear up this confusion, we’ve renamed the opinion section “Perspectives.”  Perspectives are written by a member of the Statesman staff who has chosen to write on a topic that matters to them. While the News section is intended for unbiased reporting, Perspectives allow for analysis, making and defending claims and persuasion. They show one writer’s perspective on a single topic.

This change will appear in January’s printed issue, with another explanation which has been posted below. Our goal with this change is for readers to look at an issue from another perspective. While not everyone may not agree with the perspective, we hope that they will think about the reasons for their beliefs.

Thank-you,

The Statesman Staff

Our Credo, inspired by Neil Gaiman

Welcome to Perspectives, a new way to share ideas. The Statesman believes “that you can set your own ideas against ideas you dislike. That you should be free to argue, explain, clarify, debate, offend, insult, rage, …  sing, dramatize and deny.” The goal of Perspectives is to start and add to conversations through persuasion, thought-provoking ideas, research or some combination thereof. Each Perspective is written by a Statesman staff writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of the staff in its entirety. We write because ideas “are invisible, and they linger, and, sometimes, they are even true.”

Eppur si muove: and yet it moves.