As a student newspaper, the Daily exists to fulfill three purposes: to provide readers with information, to lead discussions and to train future journalists.

Events transpiring over the last week or so have given us all healthy doses of purpose number three.

We also subscribe to the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics, which holds four basic tenets: seek truth and report it, minimize harm, act independently and be accountable.

Sadly, what I share with you today serves to hold ourselves accountable to you, our readers.

The Daily — and many other student newspapers across the country – had, for as long as I’ve been in the newsroom, subscribed to a wire service, known as U-Wire. The service provided us with access to news and sports articles, as well as columns and editorials from across the country for republishing in our paper. When the organization was founded and the Daily signed on, an agreement was made that gave permission to other schools to republish our content, and gave us the same rights to theirs.

In fall 2009, U-Wire went offline, and my staff was left scrambling to fill pages when there weren’t enough columns or letters to the editor to go around. In the beginning, we called up columnists and their editors at other papers around the Midwest to ask their permission to run their pieces. Time and again, we heard the same response: “Sounds great! Just give us proper attribution?”

Collegiate columnists and journalists, like many of you, like to get their names out there so that they’re easily recognizable to potential employers after they’ve received their diplomas.

Unfortunately, we eventually stopped calling sometime since then, because it seemed a waste of time. Instead, we simply began to take without asking from college students’ news organizations that copyright their information, which is commonly known as copyright infringement — a practice both unethical and dishonest. In the past few days, and in the days to come, I will have contacted and apologized to each of those newsrooms, personally.

And in line with keeping purpose number three — to train future journalists — we’ve met with those who’ve made the wrong decisions, those who’ll probably be making decisions next year, and those who — on the off-chance that group two is hit by a bus over the summer — might be making decisions in the future, to make sure this won’t happen again.

We aren’t perfect — a condition most students share, in their journeys to become professionals — and I can’t apologize enough for the significance of this mistake, but college is a learning process, and we count ourselves grateful to be going through these motions now, rather than as professionals. Inevitably, to learn is what we strive for.

Copyright and plagiarism are ethical standards prized by institutions of higher learning and employers alike. Get educated about it. We’ve been taking the crash course all week long.

To close, I’ll offer personal assurances that it won’t happen again, as long as I’m the paper’s editor-in-chief.

Thank you for reading, and thank you for keeping us honest.

Zach Thompson is a senior in technical communication from Nevada and the editor-in-chief.