Public Editor
Comments on the 11/12/08 issue of the UMD Statesman
Thanks much to Aaron Boyson for serving as Public Editor last week.
This week we welcome Maija Morton.
A little background - I am the new program director for 103.3 KUMD, the radio station in 130 Humanities. I was a community radio reporter in Minneapolis but am fresh from teaching journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Here is my take on this week’s paper.
Headlines
The lead story on the football team is a great choice for top story but the headline is rather cumbersome with another long headline on the back page. Front page headline could be a simple “No. 1!,� and let the picture or the writing tell the story. With the lead as the headline, it gave the whole story so I felt I could move on.
In broadcast we often stick with the subject, verb format, which eliminates passive voice and confusing sentence structure. On some stories there are too many words in the headlines. “Professor keeps promise� works and we can see the professor is a she with the picture above it labeled Helen. Also you can use present tense in the headline. “Professor goes to great lengths encouraging voter turnout.� Also there are too many prepositional phrases. Shorten tighten, and eliminate unnecessary words.
News Value
The football story has enormous news value to your readers. The next two stories I found most intriguing were the piece on rising costs of higher education and even more newsy, the student alcohol poisoning story buried on page four. Also the Deer hunting story seems misrepresented on the front page, at least the headline. I did not believe I had found the right story until I noticed the picture was repeated, another unusual choice.
Overall the paper has a great variety of stories from hard news to features stories. I think the Campus News pages had a nice variety to it, a little something for everyone. I like the diabetes story as well as the snowshoe story. I feel like I learned neat things about what other people on campus are doing and thinking about. Nice choices.
Leads
I thought the leads in the art section were the weakest. The first piece makes assumptions about the reader that may not be true and doesn’t indicate what the story is about. Plus it has too many unnecessary words. In the Wanda Gag story, the lead seems like it belongs as the last paragraph. What and where you will find the show are housekeeping details. “The work of famed Minnesota printmaker Wanda Gag comes to Tweed,� leaves the reader needing more information but gives a good start.
Front Page
The front page has less clutter and clear choices but news values could be reevaluated.
The stories on the front page appear to have more entertainment value than news value. While working to intrigue readers to pick up the paper and even open it, the choices undermine some of the more serious news stories buried in the paper.
-Maija Morton
Comments
Due to some crossed wires I also wrote up a Public Editor entry this week, so I'll post it here as a comment.
-Chris Julin
Front page
I'm eating my words. In an earlier entry I asked for the front page to include more clues about what's inside. I've changed my mind. In recent weeks the front page has gotten simpler, less crowded, and – I admit it – better. As the visual clutter on the page has been reduced I've found the page more attractive and easier to read.
This week's front page has no bar at the bottom and shorter cut lines under the photos and it looks really clean and appealing.
What about me?
I like the flu story. This is a great example of a set-up. Why wait until the flu shot clinic is going on to do the story? It's much more useful to readers to do the story ahead of time. The piece is well-written, too.
But it left me wondering if I should get a shot. I've read in previous years that old folks and people suffering from certain illnesses are at particular risk of contracting influenza. This story mentions that people with lung and heart problems face greater complications if they get the flu. So I wonder about students. Are healthy 20-year-olds safe or do flu gurus recommend they get the shot, too? It would be nice to offer some guidelines because there are lots of competing theories out there about who should get inoculated.
Speaking of news you can use
Not every story has to relate to every reader. That's the beauty of a newspaper: Readers can pick and choose. But I like to challenge writers and editors to make as many stories as possible interesting to a broad swath of readers.
Consider the deer hunting story in the Outdoors section. I'm not sure if it's for hunters or for non-hunters. The last several paragraphs offer guidance about ways to shoot and dress deer with minimal risk of lead poisoning for the people who eat the venison. That part of the story essentially offers how-to advice to hunters. It might be pretty interesting to anyone who eats venison, whether or not they shot the deer.
The first section of the story tells us that 500,000 people will deer hunt this year in Minnesota. It seems to make a bid for being a general-interest story. It sort of says: Look folks, even if you don't hunt, this is a huge deal and you should care. But beyond the first couple of paragraphs it doesn't do much to hold my interest if I'm not a hunter, and the nitty-gritty how-to information for hunters doesn't come until the end.
So this story is a sort of hybrid. Parts of it are for hunters only, and parts of it for non-hunters. Consequently it's a bit frustrating for both groups.
Focusing a story like this is tricky business. Here's one way I'd think about handling it. You could make it two stories. Do a general interest story about the size of the hunt and the health concerns related to it. Most readers, hunters and non-hunters, could find that interesting. Then do a side-bar story with the few paragraphs about how to avoid lead poisoning. After reading the first story even the non-hunters will scan the how-to story out of curiosity.
Lead of the week
While we're on the Outdoors page, let's take note of McKayla Boelter's lead in the showshoe class story.
Clever. It starts with a nice close focus on some people, which is immediately engaging. And McKayla creates a link between sawdust and snow by using the word "flurries" in that first sentence.
Who you going to call?
It's difficult to maintain proper distance from your sources in a tight-knit community like UMD. Some cases are obvious. A volleyball player can't cover the team for the Statesman. Reporters shouldn't interview their roomies as news sources.
Former profs and instructors present a tougher call. So let's look at the "Cost of higher education" story in the news section and consider the choice of Chris Godsey, recent UMD journalism instructor, as a source.
To put it plainly, I wouldn't have put him in the story. It looks bad. Not only does he have ties to the journalism program, but he was a reporter for the Statesman – which is highlighted right in the story. It makes the story feel insular and just a bit lazy. The newspaper should do what it can to be inclusive, to reach beyond the usual suspects, to give voice to as wide an array of people as it can. It should avoid sounding like a club that the reader doesn't belong to.
I don't think this is an ethical breech, but I think it's an example of stopping after the first phone call. Godsey is a great source for the story, but he doesn't belong in the story. The Statesman could have asked him, "Who did you graduate with who's still in town?" The second round of phone calls would have yielded a person to put in the story.
Look at those Dogs
The pictures from last weekend's football game caught my eye. Alexander Susuki did a swell job of bringing back some nice pics.
Posted by: Chris Julin | November 12, 2008 5:12 PM