The Triangle has, in its history, covered a variety of controversial and unflattering articles. This is not unique to our paper — every news organization occasionally runs into stories that are grim, unfortunate or unflattering, and it is our job as journalists to share them.

Since 1926, it’s been the newspaper of record at Drexel University, and generations of students have tasked themselves with documenting the school’s history through articles, pictures and commentary. We proudly serve as one such generation, united with the common mission of reporting the news and providing opinions representative of our student body.

This editorial inspired us to look decades back at old issues of The Triangle to see what editors of yore had to report on. In October 1973, Drexel student Jerry Berlin was gunned down outside a fraternity house in Powelton Village and thankfully survived. In October 1996, a female student was walking home from the Main Building after a study session when she was abducted and raped. The writer of that story interviewed the victim and got a firsthand report of the attack. Eighty-seven years is a long time, and there are surely several more stories like this.

In our few years as editors, we’ve reported on the bust of an LSD ring involving two students, allegations of health code violations at our campus dining facilities, and outcries of student anger over the University’s handling of housing crises, just to name a few controversial stories.

More recently, The Triangle published an article about Tau Kappa Epsilon’s interim suspension for violating fraternity standards. Our reporting of this incident, which was both factual and unbiased (including a statement from a TKE member), was seen by some as an intentionally negative jab at the fraternity.

We took no pleasure in covering any of these stories but did so in order to inform the student body of University news in a way that only a news organization not affiliated with Drexel’s communication department can. After all, we are “The Independent Student Newspaper at Drexel University.” This means that what we publish isn’t influenced by the University and also that we don’t accept any funding from SAFAC. We are students writing for students, and we hold that in high regard.

The Triangle’s editors and writers consistently table personal biases to report on stories fairly and accurately. It’s a big responsibility, and we don’t take it lightly. If something is happening at or regarding Drexel, rest assured we’ll be there to get the opinions of all sides of the argument. We don’t make the news, but we do report it truthfully. The Triangle has always been there to report news at Drexel, and the editorial board can assure the student body that we will always be there to report the unbiased truth.