Public Editor
Comments on the 12/3/08 issue of the UMD Statesman
This week Prof. John Schwetman from the English Department offers his services as Public Editor.
Overall impression
This newspaper clearly prioritizes the UMD community’s needs and provides members of our community with a wealth of information. It does not seek to compete with other papers by providing national or international news items, and that means it plays to its strengths by focusing on the work of the Statesman journalists at a time when so many other papers are dependent on wire services, syndicates and (gasp) press releases for news items.
It’s a visually stunning paper that has an up-to-date look and consistently effective layout.
SECTION-BY-SECTION BREAKDOWN
Page 1
The front page strikes just the right celebratory note by giving the football team two-thirds of the page. The tabloid format is interesting and the lack of actual articles on the front page make it seem more like a magazine than a newspaper, but I think this is appropriate. After all, you have to use the front page to move the paper of the shelf, and articles do not do that for you. I also like the visual contrast between our burly football stars and the nice ladies with the plants. I am not a graphic designer, so I am reluctant to mention this, but would it make more sense to put the greenhouse picture in the lower-left corner to provide more balance with the football picture? (I know, there are strict rules that govern layout—rules I never learned.)
Campus News
When I turn the page, again, I see a great balance of stories ranging from the light to the serious. In the Kwanzaa story, I thought it might be a good idea to encapsulate the what-where-when info once again at the end of the piece, so readers could more easily use it to attend the event. I enjoyed the story on the greenhouse, but I thought the opening two paragraphs could use work. Perhaps, start the story with more of a hook about tropical plants thriving at the heart of our arctic campus and then provide some more straightforward details about the De-stress series of events. Some of the passive-voice constructions in the opening two paragraphs obscure the context of this particular first of three De-stressing Events that the University is sponsoring to reduce the impacts of seasonal stress and depression.
The KUMD story draws our attention to an important but overlooked UMD resource. But, it seems like the article has not decided on a main point. Is it that student DJs care about UMD students’ tastes? Is it that no one knows KUMD exists? Or, is it that what looks like a survey of student tastes is actually an effort to “gain exposure for the station�? Prioritizing one of these questions over the other two might give this article more pointedness (though maybe you should distrust advice coming from someone who uses the word pointedness). I might also point out that the accompanying photo perpetuates KUMD’s invisibility by reducing the entire station to a disembodied hand futilely gesturing from the side of the frame toward two UMD students who, though they have nice faces, have nothing to do with the station.
Student Life
The overall paper’s emphasis is on providing useful information to UMD students, and, in that spirit, the overview of the alcohol policy in this article works well. However, the term “chemical dependency evaluation� might need some elaboration. And, I would clarify that the malefactor ends up paying that $150 fee. A more naïve reader might still be wondering who is going to foot the bill for that once he or she gets busted for slurping down gimlets in the dorms. The graphic element to the right of the story has a slight problem: it uses a different typeface, and thus becomes visually detached from the article. At first glimpse, I thought it was a liquor ad—though I know the Statesman would never run a liquor ad on the same page as a story about the perils of drinking, right? By the way, I love the fact that you got a picture of a vodka bottle in a recycling bin in Heaney Hall! That photo pretty well sums it up, doesn’t it?
Editorial and Op-Ed
These pages strike a good balance between the UMD-centered and issues in the greater community. My only gripe with the editorial is that it does not really offer some kind of solution to the problem that it brings up. Maybe it is wrong for professional teams to charge so much for tickets, but I am not sure what I can do about that. Should there be a law? I mean, it’s a bummer, but I have feeling these teams are charging what the market will bear for the seats, and that their marketing research tells them these rates are sustainable. It would be hard to imagine government-mandated price controls, but there actually is a real policy issue here: what happens to the teams’ argument for taxpayer-funding for stadiums when they price so many of those taxpayers out of the games? Do $2500 ball-game tickets constitute sort of civic good that merits taxpayer subsidies?
Humor
I probably should not comment on the Humor Page, since I am outside of its target audience, but I couldn’t help but chuckle at some of the Top Ten items. In terms of layout, there is, perhaps room for improvement. I do not see any reason why the Top Ten should crowd out the Pre-Final Freak-Out article. Why is the Top Ten list being such a bully? The poor freak-out article is contorting itself wildly to get out of big, bad Top Ten’s way.
Arts and Entertainment
I was again impressed the by the variety of columns and the usefulness to UMD students. The movie review was engaging, informative and gave me clear sense of the writer’s opinion of the movie. Two criticisms: (1) spell Luhrmann correctly (like the headline did), and (2) end it with a more conclusive-sounding sentence. Hollywood Gossip is not necessarily my thing, but I appreciated the point that celebrities sometimes exploit the tabloid papers to achieve their own ends. On another formatting note, is it necessary to include jumps from page 20 to page 21? To me, that seems needlessly cumbersome, since I see both pages at once.
Sports
Sorry, I just don’t do sports and feel like I can’t comment much on it. It looks like it is quite competently written and laid out. I’m too tuned out to say anything about the accuracy of the articles. It’s a personal failing.
Conclusion
I could write a few more pages, but I should probably stop here. I’ve probably made a big deal over some minor points and totally skipped over some major ones, but that’s the nature of the beast. At any rate, the students responsible all have my profound respect for putting together a quality newspaper every week. They are all doing great work, and I hope they find my little gripes more helpful than irritating. (If I singled your piece out for criticism, please don’t take it too personally.) As I watch the slow and steady disintegration of our local, non-UMD, daily newspaper (which I won’t name here), it is heartening to see these student journalists all working so hard to produce a fine UMD Statesman. Who knows? One of these days, the people of Duluth may find themselves dependent on the Statesman for all of their printed news.
-John Schwetman