Each year, ASSP candidates post flyers, campaign in the dorms, and find their profiles within the pages of The Falcon. As a newspaper, we also publish candidate endorsements in the closest issue to elections. There is a potential conflict of interest in endorsing candidates of ASSP, mainly because a large portion of our budget as well as the stipends for editors come from ASSP, and we are endorsing candidates who will be responsible for making budgetary decisions affecting media organizations.

In order to avoid this conflict of interest, The Falcon would need to be self-sufficient on advertising revenue, but we do not have the staff to accomplish this.

The Falcon has made a tradition every year of endorsing the candidates we feel will best represent the student body, and we feel it is our obligation to the SPU student body to examine each candidate's strengths and weaknesses on issues relevant and important to our campus.

In order to hold ASSP accountable, The Falcon must also be held accountable. We acknowledge the conflict of interest that exists in ASSP's funding of The Falcon, and our endorsements of candidates reflect our best efforts to remain transparent and independent.

It is the hope of The Falcon editorial board that you will take the democratic process seriously and will take the time to learn about candidates individually. We also encourage students to vote and to elect the candidates who will best represent the student body of SPU next year.

In order to fully disclose any potential conflicts, The Falcon editorial board has published the questions we asked each candidate, as well as the reasoning behind our endorsements. Although photo editor David Ghan is part of the editorial board, he was not a part of the endorsement process because he is currently an ASSP Senator.

Editor-in-chief Andy Scott, opinions editor Christina Petitfils, copy editor Matt Woods and layout editor Ben Bannister all contributed to interviews and discussed each candidate corporately before decisions were made.