Secrets don’t make friends. For example, the ISU Foundation has been under fire for years because they won’t open all of their donation records.

Regardless of their past, current or future actions, the fact that this organization is keeping “secrets” makes people suspicious.

The news media has the same problem.

During the past three years I’ve worked at the Daily I’ve heard all kinds of opinions and complaints that we are biased and unprofessional. I’m told we’re too liberal, too sloppy and too immature to be taken seriously by anyone, especially our readers.

Sometimes these comments are warranted and sometimes they aren’t, but the underlying issue throughout is that our readers don’t think they can trust what they read in the Daily.

As the newest editor in chief of the Daily, this bothers me a lot.

And it’s not just because of my job or the role the Daily has played in my college career. It’s because I think the purpose of a newspaper, or any news media, is to serve as a mirror for the community it covers. If our readers aren’t able to trust what they’re reading in the Daily, a reflection of their community, then we must be doing something wrong.

So I went into the Daily newsroom, looking for the sloppiness, immaturity and bias that we seem to be so notorious for.

And I didn’t find anything.

Instead I found some of the most dedicated students on campus. People who sacrifice grades, sleep and fun because they are passionate about providing news and issues to their readers as best they know how.

They want to reflect their community.

But this still left me looking for where people’s apparent misconceptions about the Daily were coming from. I couldn’t find the source, until one day last year as I was sitting at home talking to my mom and brother about the presidential election.

My brother was complaining that the Des Moines Register was biased because of some of the election stories they had run and the way they had been placed in the newspaper.

I was so surprised.

After three years of journalism classes and working for the Daily, I hadn’t seen anything biased or unfair in the Register’s election coverage.

As I started explaining to my brother why he was wrong about the Register, I suddenly realized that I have a totally different perspective on the news than my family and friends.

Every day the Daily staff sifts through press releases, listens to news tips and reads newspapers in an attempt to stay up on what’s going on around us. We think we know what we’re looking for in a good news story, what issues matter to our readers.

But our readers don’t know about journalism ethics, the AP Stylebook or the guidelines for deciding what’s news and what’s not.

So this year, I’m going to try to open the lid of journalism’s box and see what flies out. I have some ideas for topics already, but I need input from you too.

So if you have any burning questions about newspapers, or news in general, e-mail them to [email protected].

If they aren’t burning questions, but just questions, e-mail them too and we’ll see what happens.

Just remember, secrets don’t make friends.

Andrea Hauser is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Edgewood. She is editor in chief of the Daily.