Letter From the Editors: May 22, 2020

PICTURED ABOVE (LEFT TO RIGHT): ACTIVISM EDITOR YEMAYA WILLIAMS, PODCAST EDITOR JONATHAN GRACE, FOUNDER/NEWS AND OPINION EDITOR RAVEN YAMAMOTO (BEHIND), LIFESTYLE EDITOR ROBYN DE LEON (IN FRONT), ARTS AND CULTURE EDITOR MEGAN LORETO.

5.22.2020: Letter From the Editors

By The Editorial Board

To the LMU community, 

Now that the 2019-20 school year has come to an end, we wanted to take some time to reflect on our first semester. To watch Agency grow from an abstract concept into a fully-fledged operation has been a privilege. Our project began last fall, and it has been months in the making to get to where we are today. None of this would have been possible without the help of our mentors, staff, contributors or you, our audience. It seems to us that your support knows no bounds even when we are all miles away from the Bluff. 

Since our official launch in February, Agency has put out over 40 articles written by LMU students and started its first weekly news podcast, The Addendum. We ran a series of live Q&As with your candidates for student government during LMU’s first-ever virtual election season. We reported the news and featured your voices during challenging and unprecedented times for our community. We have grown to over 600 followers on social media and accumulated nearly 10,000 views on our website in just three months. Through it all, we have worked to fulfill the mission we drafted as an editorial board at the beginning of 2020.  

We have always strived to create a platform built on principles of justice, equity and truth. We pride ourselves on being a group of people that cannot be bought or silenced. We openly declare our loyalty to you, our readers, before anyone else. Without the need for independent news, there is no Agency. Without a community to serve, there is no journalism. 

We look forward to continuing this work not just for you, but with you. We will strive to deepen your support and maintain your readership in the years to come. 

In community,

Raven Yamamoto (Founder, News/Op-ed Editor) 

Robyn De Leon (Lifestyle Editor)

Megan Loreto (Arts & Culture Editor)                                  

Lauree Anne De Mattos (Chief Copyeditor)

Yemaya Williams (Activism Editor)

Jonathan Grace (Podcast Editor)