Until his apparent abduction on Mar. 12 by the Army of Islam this year, Johnston was the last remaining foreign correspondent reporting from the problematic Gaza Strip in the Middle East. The unanimous calls from warring Palestinian factions to release him are a sign that Johnson was making a difference to all parties with his on-the-ground reporting.

While Johnston’s case might seem rather extreme and isolated from our everyday existence in Singapore and NUS, it typifies the kind of importance and relevance that Campus Observer seeks to achieve with our journalism.  

In the past year, we have covered not only the election of student club representatives but also various cultural events, including the annual NUS Arts Festival organized by the university’s Centre for the Arts. We also carried stories about the university grading system.  

As we go into our sophomore year of publication, we hope to consolidate our efforts of the past year in working towards fulfilling journalism’s intended public role on campus.  

Yet the inherent power embedded in such a public role could ironically potentially derail journalists from fulfilling such a mission.  

Journalists wield power because the newspaper is a crucible of public opinion. In this case, Campus Observer is a platform for the NUS student community to not only voice opinions but also to engage in public debate on issues that affect our well-being.

While talking and relating to people is something journalists do on a daily basis so they can file their stories, the same cannot quite be said for the people we talk to. For many of them, these occasions may well be the only time they ever talk to a journalist and have their opinions directly expressed on a platform as public as a news outlet.

While I was interning at the Singapore bureau of The Associated Press this past summer, a senior colleague said to always remember this “little fact of life” because it would help us maintain some form of humility and respect in our treatment of our news makers.  

Otherwise, she said, such self-reflexivity might prove difficult over time if we allow ourselves to be consumed by the considerable power that journalists wield with our pens.

While this may be practically difficult, it remains something totally necessary because – as much as it may sound awfully cliché – with great powers come great responsibilities.   

Journalists therefore not only have an obligation to get our facts right, to ensure that our news gathering methods are rigorous and meet the highest ethical standards possible, but also to ensure that we accurately depict the conditions that we encounter.  

While balancing our pursuit of journalism with our basic responsibility as students is extremely time consuming and difficult, the inherent public role of journalism is precisely the reason why we still believe it to be a vocation worth our while.

We certainly hope you share our convictions.