By Steve Nye
When she first walked into the Cougareat at the start of the semester, Lindsey Carpenter was shocked to find Styrofoam cups being used to serve drinks.
In an effort to voice her concern, she sent a letter to BYU Dining Services but never received a response.
?I?ve been concerned with the lack of environmental concerns at BYU,? said Carpenter, a freshman from Spokane, Wash.
Carpenter?s mother then suggested that she contact The Daily Universe with her environmental concerns. After browsing the paper?s Web site, Carpenter found a link where she could submit her news.
The Daily Universe has created an online ?News Tips? link for readers to submit news and story ideas. The tip for the link came during a question and answer session with the Universe editorial staff and students in mid-November.
?We implemented the ?News Tips? as part of a process of getting in touch with our community,? said Robb Hicken, managing director of The Daily Universe. ?We only have so many eyes and ears out in our community, and this is just one more opportunity to hear from our publics.?
Although not every story will hit newsstands, Daily Universe editors will take extra care in selecting what stories appear in print.
?We sometimes get complaints about the stories we choose, and hopefully by knowing about the more important stories we will be able to choose the better stories to run,? said Sarah Light, campus editor for The Daily Universe. ?We will choose stories based on how much the student body as a whole will benefit from it.?
?News Tips? gives readers an easy way to submit news, Light said.
After readers submit story ideas and news online at newsnet.byu.edu, the tips are given to editors to make reporting assignments.
?A lot of times as editors, we feel a little frustrated because we don?t know about a lot of things going on,? Light said. ?If more people submit news to us, we will have a better opportunity to choose the stories more people are interested in.?
Although her story has not hit print yet, Carpenter now has connections with the student-run newspaper.
?It really helps to have a way for students to submit their own ideas and own tips for the newspaper,? she said. ?After all, it is for them.?