This phrase has been running through my mind for the past couple of weeks: Can we do anything right? It bogs me down. From what everyone in my life is telling me, that feeling is bogging them down too. I, unfortunately and unlike most of my friends, signed up for it.

The Trinitonian is a public-serving entity. We publish our community’s faults and successes and try to get everything in between. We put people in vulnerable positions, allowing all of their peers to read what they told one of our reporters. I have to be prepared for public-facing backlash; everything we say about people is public-facing. We have a whole section of staff training on dealing with backlash.

That doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck to read Fizz posts calling the Trinitonian “evil and misleading.” And it doesn’t just suck; it doesn’t work. When someone posts on Fizz or posts on their story, I either won’t know about it or won’t be able to follow up to address their concerns. As the Trinitonian’s editor-in-chief, this is frustrating.

I’ve dedicated my entire college career to this paper, and in my personal opinion, we’ve come a long way. I’m proud of what we’re produced over the past few months.

Fifty people on staff, myself included, work tirelessly on every single piece that’s published in our paper. Almost 40 hours of my week is filled with last-minute meetings, hour-long interviews and an unbelievable amount of conflict resolution. The paper goes through rounds and rounds of editing and decision-making, and we do catch mistakes.

But we are student journalists. We make mistakes. There’s not a journalism program at Trinity (that’s an editorial for another time), and most of our staff aren’t in majors that are even adjacent to journalism. All of the training and education every person on our staff gets is through the Trinitonian. We are Trinity’s journalism program.

Every time we succeed, we get emails and messages from members of our community telling us that we’re doing a wonderful job. I hear that we’re successful, for a student paper. Every time we make a mistake, people post on Fizz, on their Instagram stories or I have to hear through a friend of a friend of a friend that someone is mad at us. We fail, and it feels like the backlash is on par with that of the New York Times.

To a certain extent, I have to accept that people will talk negatively about my work with others or post on their stories complaining about our coverage. Like I said, I signed up for this, and we were prepared for it. We prepared our staff for it, and we can’t stop people from saying what they want about us. That goes against our whole stance on censorship.

I do, however, feel hurt and confused when people complain on Fizz rather than coming to us directly to address problems. Managing Editor Diya Contractor and I have worked so hard to improve our relationships across campus. We are accessible. We have made ourselves accessible. We are not the New York Times. Our audience is fewer than 5,000 people, and between everyone on staff, we know nearly all our community members by name.

Everyone has access to my email, to Diya’s email, to the Trinitonian email. You have classes with us. You can always walk down to the newsroom behind the Tiger’s Den and grab us. You can email Opinion Editor Riya Vankamamidi and write a guest column or a letter to the editor, and you can write about us. You can write about almost whatever you want, and we will publish it.

I’m not expecting people to never post negatively about the Trinitonian again. It’ll happen, and I’m okay with that. Complain about us all you want; I’m not writing this to let my feelings get in the way of you speaking your mind. I am saying, though, that if you want us to actually improve, we need to hear from you directly. If we misspelled your name or you truly do believe we are “evil and misleading,” we want you to tell us directly. I recognize that we make mistakes, and I’m always willing to take accountability for that.

There are ways to tell us. If you think we’re biased, write in or schedule a meeting with me. If you notice a mistake, email me. Fill out our feedback form (right next to this editorial). Our goal is never to slander people. It’s never to spread lies or hurt our community. Our goal will always be to share reliable and unbiased news — to give a voice to the community — and if you ever think we’re missing that mark, tell us.