Providing balanced coverage of the student body presidential elections each year is a duty The Oracle takes very seriously.

Fairly covering the campaigns and evaluating the promises and platforms of each candidate who is running to lead the voices of more than 40,000 students is an essential part of the democratic process, and providing unbiased coverage is an essential part of what a newspaper should do.  

This year poses an interesting challenge in coverage: one of the three candidates is an employee of The Oracle.

Danish Hasan has been a correspondent for the news section of The Oracle since Fall 2013 and became a staff writer in Spring 2014. 

Hasan will continue in his position as a staff writer, however will not be involved in either the coverage of the elections or USF administration or the planning process of such coverage during the duration of his campaign in the interest of providing fair coverage free of conflicts of interest to all campaigns. In the event that Hasan wins the election, he would still be permitted to continue in his role at The Oracle, as any other student would, covering anything that does not come as a conflict of interest to the roles he would serve in.  

The Oracle will continue to cover the debates, the election process and each candidate’s campaign, including Hasan’s, as it has a tradition of having done, asking questions of each candidate to allow the student body to best understand the candidates they are voting for. 

The Oracle seeks to represent the voice of every student – those involved in Student Government, those uninterested by Student Government and everyone in between. We welcome anyone interested in pursuing opportunities to write for The Oracle to do so, submit Letters to the Editor or submit story ideas to have his or her voice reflected.