Tips and pitches

We encourage community members to send in suggestions for things Student Life should cover. You can submit your pitches and tips by emailing [email protected]. You can also reach out to individual editors by finding their email address on this page.

Pitches and tips could range from a question about University policy or a topic to investigate to an interesting person in the WashU community worthy of a profile.

Written sections

These are the four main sections that appear in Student Life each week.

News

The News section covers everything from breaking news to campus protests, academic policies, and WashU's relationship with the St. Louis region. You can reach the editors by emailing [email protected].

Scene

The Scene section provides features about the people, places, and events that make up the WashU community. The section publishes profiles, Q&As, advice columns, and other looks into the lives of WashU students, faculty, staff, and neighbors. Scene also covers arts and entertainment within the WashU community and reviews TV, movies, theater, and books. You can reach the editors by emailing [email protected].

Sports

The Sports section's coverage primarily consists of news and features regarding WashU's 19 varsity athletics teams and the University athletics department. The section also sometimes includes coverage of club or intramural sports and often features commentary from students on local or national sports. You can reach the editors by emailing [email protected].

Forum

The Forum section is Student Life’s home for opinion pieces and community member perspectives regarding the WashU community. Forum publishes four types of content: staff articles, opinion submissions, letters to the editor, and staff editorials. Each type of article is explained in more detail below. Forum content includes a wide variety of topics, including political, social, campus, and pop culture-related commentary. The Forum section strives to include a diverse array of perspectives. You can reach the editors by emailing [email protected].

Visuals/Multimedia

In addition to the four written sections, Student Life has a growing visuals and multimedia team.

Multimedia

The Multimedia staff supports the efforts of the other sections and creates their own original video content. Multimedia produces podcasts, long-form video essays, and short-form video content. You can reach the editors by emailing [email protected].

Photo

The Photo team's work ranges from photography of sports and protests to photo essays and event coverage. You can reach the editors by emailing [email protected].

Illustrations

The Illustration team makes graphics and other visualizations and supports the Student Life Design team with the newspaper’s special issues. The team also creates weekly illustrations for Student Life’s caption contest. You can reach the editors by emailing [email protected].

Design

The Design team lays out the weekly print edition on InDesign and works with other sections to help visualize their articles in creative ways. Aside from weekly issues, Design works on website layout, magazines, and special issues such as Student Love. You can reach the editors by emailing [email protected].

Social Media

The Social Media team gets Student Life to the public through Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. They also cover time-sensitive breaking news stories before the weekly print publication hits newsstands. You can reach the social media team by direct messaging an account on any platform.

Newsletter

The Newsletter team consists of newsletter writers, editors, and weather reporters. The team sends out a newsletter every day — Monday through Friday, and occasionally on Saturday — to the WashU inboxes of every undergraduate student, as well as many faculty, staff, parents, and graduate students. Newsletters contain breaking news, articles from Student Life's written sections, detailed daily weather, event lists, games and trivia, and often more! Email [email protected] for comments, or sign up to receive the newsletter here.

Types of opinion pieces

The Forum section receives and publishes various types of opinion pieces.

Opinion submissions

Opinion submissions (previously known as “op-eds”) are written and submitted by members of the community who are unaffiliated with Student Life. These articles solely reflect the opinion of the author or authors, not that of Student Life or its editors. Opinion submissions are around 500 to 1,000 words, have a central argument, and are not a platform for self or group promotional content. To submit an opinion piece, email [email protected] with the subject line “Opinion Submission.” The Forum section encourages community members of all backgrounds to submit opinion pieces — Student Life is a student newspaper, but we strive to include the voices of people beyond students, including faculty, staff, alumni, and campus neighbors or St. Louis residents. Student Life fact-checks every opinion piece thoroughly, just as we do every other piece we publish. We reserve the right to reject opinion submissions for any reason or no reason at all. Reasons include but are not limited to factual inaccuracy, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, or otherwise objectionable content. Opinion submissions can be written by multiple people, but all authors must be included in the byline or signed on to the bottom of the article. Except in extreme circumstances, Student Life does not publish anonymous opinion submissions, and in those circumstances, at least one editor must know the identity of the article’s author.

Letters to the editor

Letters to the editor are opinion submissions that respond to other Student Life articles or to Student Life content in general. Community members should include a link to the initial Student Life article or articles in their letter. The same standards for opinion submissions apply to letters to the editor.

Staff editorials

Staff editorials exist to provide an additional student perspective on key issues relating to the WashU community. Staff editorials are the product of the regular meetings of the Student Life editorial board, which is composed of editors from across the Student Life staff.

The editorial board operates independently of the Student Life News team. News editors are not members of the editorial board and do not attend editorial board meetings except to occasionally provide informational context on a given topic. Once editorial board members choose a topic at a given meeting, any editors who have reported on the topic within the previous full semester recuse themselves and do not participate in the meeting. This recuse policy enables us to ensure the integrity of our news reporting and build trust with our readership.

Staff editorials represent the opinion of a majority of editorial board members present at the meeting, not that of the newspaper or the newspaper’s news section.

The editorial board strives to cover a diverse array of material in staff editorials, but we know there is always room for improvement. If you have a topic you would like to see in a future staff editorial, you can submit suggestions by emailing [email protected].