Mission Statements and Editorial Policies

The Blazer, the school's paper (that our class will be exclusively responsible for creating this year), has no mission statement or editorial policy.

a mission statement is something that states the goal or purpose of a publication.

for example:
Mission Statement
Pennsylvania Newspaper Association
"Our mission is to advance the interests of Pennsylvania newspapers, promote the importance of a free and independent press and provide a forum for critical and innovative thinking about the future of journalism and the newspaper industry."

editorial policy - states the paper's policy about how editorials and other opinions will be handled. It decides what kind of forum we are going to offer. (Open or closed or any variety of either)
here are some examples:
http://thedartmouth.com/about/

http://www.sundaystandard.info/about_us.php

http://www.splc.org/newsflash_archives.asp?id=1293&year=2006

http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=9202

http://www.gazette.uwo.ca/policies.cfm

Think about what is appropriate for our school... we will be writing a mission statement and an editorial policy for our paper next week.