This past week, a group of Marquette students released a newsmagazine titled The Warrior. Conservative Weblogs have heralded The Warrior as an alternative source to The Marquette Tribune, which Warrior staffers have said does not represent students and is merely a propaganda arm of the university. The Tribune thoroughly disagrees with this claim. However in the spirit of the First Amendment, we welcome the new publication to campus.

Our Founding Fathers strongly believed in the free exchange of ideas in order to create an informed citizenry. This principle has been essential to the success of the American experience. People in this country are expected to participate in public discourse and in government. They participate not only to sustain our democracy but also to improve it.

The addition of another student publication to the Marquette campus is in keeping with our American heritage. Any attempt to censor or intimidate members of The Warrior is not becoming of Americans or of Marquette students.

The objective of any news publication is to inform its readership in a fair and objective manner about important events and issues facing the community. Facts must tell the story, not ideological presuppositions. This is a standard the Tribune holds dear and strives to fulfill. Although we are published by the university, our goal has always been to give an objective view of the news and events in the Marquette community, free of any influence from the administration and from political ideologies.

In a letter to readers, Warrior editor Diana Sroka guarantees the publication will give readers the truth. We hope the Warrior will hold itself accountable to this claim and in doing so objectively, discredit critics who denounced it as a news magazine with a conservative agenda.

Having two newspapers at Marquette committed to pursuing the truth will benefit everyone. Competition between the two papers will undoubtedly make both strive to better serve readers. The staffs of the Tribune and The Warrior will push themselves further, work harder and better present news regarding Marquette and its surrounding community.

It's a great day to be a journalist.