As most of you now know, our co-founder and erstwhile Editor-In-Chief, Chris Schlak, has graduated from UT and is thus stepping down from his position in charge of the Horn. While we are all saddened to see him go, we are very happy for him, as he is now a fact-checking editor at USA Today. I will be taking over as editor-in-chief, and I would like to take this chance to introduce myself and lay out where I see the future direction of the Horn.
My name is Jackson Paul, and I founded the Horn with Chris back in March 2021. I have always had a passion for writing, and have held a passion for politics since the age of 15, when my father gave me the works of Friedman, Hayek, and Goldwater. It is their vision of ordered liberty, of a society in which the government protects our freedoms, provides basic public goods, and otherwise leaves people in peace to tend their own gardens, that motivated me to get involved in politics. I know many of our editors and correspondents have a quite different view of conservatism, and that’s OK; we exist to foster free discourse on everything the politically minded Longhorn or Texan could be interested in— from abstract philosophy to the goings-on in student government. I lay out my political alignment only to give a clear understanding of where I am coming from, which I think it is only fair for our readers to know.
The Horn has grown quickly in the past 14 months, and I would say that it has surpassed my vision for it, except, looking back, I honestly can’t say that I had any clear idea of what we were doing or where we were going. With that said, I do now have a better idea of where I think the Horn should head in the coming year.
First, I would like to further develop our coverage of the UT campus, particularly regarding objects of political interest. Progressive domination of campus, from student government to student journalism, has a real and negative effect on student life. For instance, progressives have pushed to eliminate police presence on campus, which would worsen the already somewhat tenuous security situation in west campus, and have fought against attempts, such as the Liberty Institute, to bring ideological diversity to campus, which will worsen students’ education by reducing the range of ideas they are espoused to, and thus their capacity to think. We at the Horn want to put a spotlight on these efforts so that UT students can understand what is happening on their campus.
We also want to bring more awareness to the nonpolitical side of campus news. Our correspondents have already done excellent work on this front, but I hope to expand it. While we lack the resources to provide comprehensive updates about non-political campus events, and anyway our colleagues at The Daily Texan already do a perfectly competent job on that front, we do still think there is a niche for someone to fill in terms of more substantive reporting. For instance, there are a lot of organizations on campus that do valuable work but get very little airtime. Giving them a platform to talk about their work is a way in which we can develop further.
Over the past year, we have spent a lot of energy covering local races in Texas, interviewing everyone from city councilors to candidates for governor. This was wonderful, and I am grateful that we launched at a time, and had people with the initiative, to make this happen. I think that our interviews with public officials are valuable in terms of connecting UT students, particularly but not exclusively our writers, to Texas politics, providing an independent source of news on Texas politics, particularly intra-conservative politics, and giving a platform to rising public servants within the movement who want to make their case to Texas.
Finally, I want to give UT students the chance to further develop their political philosophies. Writing for an audience, even a comparatively small audience, forces you to wrestle with your political convictions on a deeper level than idly talking about them with your friends or on Twitter does. Because of this, I want to continue our commentary on national issues and politically controversial topics— not necessarily to change the conversation on these topics, although we do hope to do that, but to give the leaders of tomorrow the chance to practice the arts of thinking and writing for an audience, so that both the practice and the, often very critical, public feedback they receive will make them better citizens and, in some cases, better leaders of our Republic.
The motto of UT Austin is “Disciplina Praesidium Civitatis” which translates as “Cultivated mind is the guardian spirit* of democracy.” I hope that we, in our own small way, can help cultivate the minds of our fellow students through reasoned debate, cultivate our own minds through exposure of our ideas to public comment and criticism, and cultivate the minds of the public through elevation of insightful opinion and overlooked news.
If any of our readers in the UT community want to get involved, I encourage them to reach out to us through the “Join our team” or “contact us” tabs. Whether you want to report, write, or edit for us, or get involved on the more technical side of running a newspaper, now is your chance to make a difference in the national discourse. And who knows, maybe you’ll use us as a springboard to work with USA Today.
To all of our readers— diehard fans, diehard critics, and curious onlookers alike— we cannot thank any of you enough for your support and readership. The road will not be easy, but we will persevere. We have had a great first 14 months, but you ain’t seen nothing yet!
*The word is traditionally translated as genius, but used in its medieval, rather than its modern, usage. The term spirit has more of the right connotations to the modern ear.
Right on, Jackson!!! BP