Daily Cougar shares The Pride, reserves right to criticize

One week into the semester, many students are already upset with The Daily Cougar — and we welcome the criticism, because it means that students have pride in the University they attend.

While our University is not without its shortcomings (as are all other universities), the editors of the Cougar, both past and present, hold UH in high esteem; if we didn’t, chances are we wouldn’t have gotten involved in a student organization in the first place.

It wasn’t too long ago when someone would write an opinion piece bashing UH, and the article would go relatively unnoticed. And we’re happy to see that these days, many students simply won’t stand for it. It’s also refreshing to see so many students wearing UH t-shirts instead of University of Texas, Texas A&M and Louisiana State University apparel.

Sometimes people forget that we are students too, and the last thing we want is for our school to be perceived poorly. But if something bad happens, or if a student has a dissenting opinion, we will publish it.

The University already has a group dedicated to marketing it, and it’s important to recognize that the Cougar serves a different purpose entirely. We’re here to say important things — and that means things that not everyone will agree with.

The Cougar has also been accused of running certain stories specifically to rile students and increase traffic on the website as well as the circulation of our print editions. This is false, and we make it a point not to do that.

Ever.

In some cases, we’re aware that some articles might garner a lot of attention, but it’s never our sole reason for publishing them. But it is, after all, our job to act as somewhat of a watchdog of the University, ready to report anything and everything we see, no matter whether it reflects well or poorly on UH.

That being said, if you don’t believe we too share pride in UH, just ask us personally at Saturday’s football game against Texas State University. We’ll be there; will you?