a word about the business of journalism
Nov. 8th, 2005 03:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aruanNobody is perfect. For that matter, no system, no person, no book, no logic, no method is ever without fault. We can try real hard, which I find utmostly commendable given the ultimate futility of most any endeavour, but at the end of the day, we go home failed and flawed creatures.
But trying keeps us living. So we do it, to the best of our mental, physical, emotional and spiritual capacity if we really care, which I do when it comes to the Alligator. Maybe not the people who comprise it always, maybe not about every iota of content in it, but I do what I can within my domain.
Yet, criticism happens. Mike and I voluntarily sit for at least 45 minutes of it every Thursday afternoon. We respond to discontent letters to the editor. We talk to irrational people who come in demanding censorship and blaming us for our forefathers' mistakes. And that's fine, all of it, because every time, I learn something, either about a mistake I made or how even when I do something right, it can be perceived unflatteringly.
What I cannot stand is righteousness on the part of those who know how the system works and had a huge chance to contribute but chose to walk away over personal pettiness when they could've done worlds to better it through contributions from the inside instead of casting stones at its walls.
Our not-so-dearly departed University Editor Stephanie - yes, because of the cartoon, our sole casualty thereto, and I could quote you Robin Hood: Men in Tights if you want to know my stance about it - wrote a letter to the editor this weekend about this story. It's something she feels passionately against, which is fine. As much as we laud impartiality, journalists are an educated, current events-savvy bunch who see the cogs rather than what pops out at the end of the assembly line. Of course we have opinions.
However, back to our imperfect system, it had holes. Stephanie cited that we neglected to call Graduate Assistants United for comment, a group that has been vocal in its opposition to the fee since its inception. This battle's been going on for a while, and she's been here for a lot of it. She also knows the biggest danger with turnover being what it is at a college publication like the Alligator, the rarest and most precious commodity we have, is institutional knowledge. Preserving the issues and significances of events so that when a future reporter is looking at a Gainesville City Commission agenda and going, why are we providing money to sensitivity-train our police officers, someone can raise her hand and say, because we had an incident at the 2004 Fifth Avenue Arts Festival that got the city sued on racial grounds is invaluable to smart journalism. The writer of the story is Student Government Writer David, and the only time they care about anybody who's not white and well connected is when it works as a profitable political move. At least two other writers turned in stories on this topic in the past, and yes, David could've done more of his homework, but now we're back to doing what we can. Maybe he was tired last night, maybe he felt he could write a complete story with the sources he had, and maybe if he had a knowledgeable editor to bring these things to his attention instead of an overworked, perpetually frazzled one whose specialty also lies with SG, we would've had a different story.
Anyway, another issue of hers was our putting the story on pg. 3 - not exactly the Siberia of the newspaper. Newspaper budgeting is a tumultuous process. While our news judgment is honed with every one, there are still extenuating circumstances. On that issue's front page were: a local Rosa Parks funeral ceremony, a cause-of-death follow-up story on a UF fraternity member who was beaten to death after the Florida-Georgia game in Jacksonville over the weekend, and a story about three-year expired certificates of operation in the Reitz Union elevators. That last story is one we've been trying to get forever. Like, since the second week of the semester forever. But the bastards actually just changed the licenses that day, so it wasn't nearly as newsy as it should've been, but there was history and a very real newspeg to it, which could've been brought out with better editing and more questions (and don't think she's not writing the follow-up as we speak). Point is, three worthy stories on the front page. Hey, sometimes the Pope dies, and the front page as we thought we were going to budget just doesn't turn out that way. I believe the French and John Lennon put this best, so take your pick.
She also makes the contention that we didn't give it enough space. We've had small papers for years now. There used to be 48 staff writers and papers 30-pages long - regularly! However, that is not the era of prosperity that we have the luxury of luxuriating in at moment present, so we make do with what we've got. There are a dozen events on campus and throughout Gainesville that we never mention in the paper at all, and that's the way of things for better or worse.
She knows all of these things intimately. She knows how short-staffed we are, she knows getting people to do two stories a week is something of a minor miracle, that everyone is being dirty slackers this semester and not wanting to cover a beat. Stringers are fine, but by and large, I have no use for them because they don't contribute in any meaningful and lasting way to the paper. They don't pay attention when you edit, they go to their classes above all else, they go to dinner before writing that story you need by 9 p.m. - it's just stomach-churningly frustrating to work with people who don't love this as much as I do. She knows we have a finite amount of space per paper, and the democratic process of budgeting when everyone gets a say (my own favorite time of the night), and how haphazardly stories are assigned when everyone is doing everyone else's work as well as their own, and how late news breaks and the hundred other things that influence what goes where and how long as to the paper. We do what we can with what we've got, and she decided she didn't want to anymore, not that it should disallow her from casting stones from her glass house on the hill.
What we do at that dingy office five days a week isn't a profitable undertaking. There is as much money in journalism as crying in Tom Hanks' baseball movie, as much respect as goth kids get in mall stores, as much love as a stray animal gets. There is no off-season, no bunting, no aluminum bats - nothing here in newspapers but love of the game, people. And for her to say what our "obligations" should be, her criticizing the work of our writers on the sidelines without sticking in and doing what she could've to keep it as good as it could be, that I can't have respect for and certainly can't justify printing.
But it was somebody else who made that decision, though she and some others would like to believe it was a call made by me purely out of spite. If that's the kind of principles others are doing their jobs by, then come forward so I can fire you where you stand. Frankly, I read her letter, and my reaction was to nod and say, yes, in this, we did not do so well. There was more to this story, and maybe if I were University Editor, maybe if I didn't have the odious task of cleaning up the paper in the myriad ways that make people stop reading after the second paragraph because the pronouns don't agree with their antecedents, maybe if we all were a little less strapped for resources we could've made this what it should've been, instead of continuing to wallow in mediocrity.
Does it matter that I think the fee is justifiably passed on to international students rather than footed by an already budget-stretched UF? No, it doesn't. Because a valid opinion is a valid opinion, and she opposes the fee on principle while I support it on practicality. Not to be too crass about it, but American kids aren't going abroad under the auspices of studying and blow up buildings instead. Which isn't to say that anyone at UF has such intentions, and my apologies to Ben Franklin, but I'm on the safe rather than sorry side of the camp on that one.
Anyhow, long story short, people suck, news is hard, but if we do better tomorrow, it's all worth it.
But trying keeps us living. So we do it, to the best of our mental, physical, emotional and spiritual capacity if we really care, which I do when it comes to the Alligator. Maybe not the people who comprise it always, maybe not about every iota of content in it, but I do what I can within my domain.
Yet, criticism happens. Mike and I voluntarily sit for at least 45 minutes of it every Thursday afternoon. We respond to discontent letters to the editor. We talk to irrational people who come in demanding censorship and blaming us for our forefathers' mistakes. And that's fine, all of it, because every time, I learn something, either about a mistake I made or how even when I do something right, it can be perceived unflatteringly.
What I cannot stand is righteousness on the part of those who know how the system works and had a huge chance to contribute but chose to walk away over personal pettiness when they could've done worlds to better it through contributions from the inside instead of casting stones at its walls.
Our not-so-dearly departed University Editor Stephanie - yes, because of the cartoon, our sole casualty thereto, and I could quote you Robin Hood: Men in Tights if you want to know my stance about it - wrote a letter to the editor this weekend about this story. It's something she feels passionately against, which is fine. As much as we laud impartiality, journalists are an educated, current events-savvy bunch who see the cogs rather than what pops out at the end of the assembly line. Of course we have opinions.
However, back to our imperfect system, it had holes. Stephanie cited that we neglected to call Graduate Assistants United for comment, a group that has been vocal in its opposition to the fee since its inception. This battle's been going on for a while, and she's been here for a lot of it. She also knows the biggest danger with turnover being what it is at a college publication like the Alligator, the rarest and most precious commodity we have, is institutional knowledge. Preserving the issues and significances of events so that when a future reporter is looking at a Gainesville City Commission agenda and going, why are we providing money to sensitivity-train our police officers, someone can raise her hand and say, because we had an incident at the 2004 Fifth Avenue Arts Festival that got the city sued on racial grounds is invaluable to smart journalism. The writer of the story is Student Government Writer David, and the only time they care about anybody who's not white and well connected is when it works as a profitable political move. At least two other writers turned in stories on this topic in the past, and yes, David could've done more of his homework, but now we're back to doing what we can. Maybe he was tired last night, maybe he felt he could write a complete story with the sources he had, and maybe if he had a knowledgeable editor to bring these things to his attention instead of an overworked, perpetually frazzled one whose specialty also lies with SG, we would've had a different story.
Anyway, another issue of hers was our putting the story on pg. 3 - not exactly the Siberia of the newspaper. Newspaper budgeting is a tumultuous process. While our news judgment is honed with every one, there are still extenuating circumstances. On that issue's front page were: a local Rosa Parks funeral ceremony, a cause-of-death follow-up story on a UF fraternity member who was beaten to death after the Florida-Georgia game in Jacksonville over the weekend, and a story about three-year expired certificates of operation in the Reitz Union elevators. That last story is one we've been trying to get forever. Like, since the second week of the semester forever. But the bastards actually just changed the licenses that day, so it wasn't nearly as newsy as it should've been, but there was history and a very real newspeg to it, which could've been brought out with better editing and more questions (and don't think she's not writing the follow-up as we speak). Point is, three worthy stories on the front page. Hey, sometimes the Pope dies, and the front page as we thought we were going to budget just doesn't turn out that way. I believe the French and John Lennon put this best, so take your pick.
She also makes the contention that we didn't give it enough space. We've had small papers for years now. There used to be 48 staff writers and papers 30-pages long - regularly! However, that is not the era of prosperity that we have the luxury of luxuriating in at moment present, so we make do with what we've got. There are a dozen events on campus and throughout Gainesville that we never mention in the paper at all, and that's the way of things for better or worse.
She knows all of these things intimately. She knows how short-staffed we are, she knows getting people to do two stories a week is something of a minor miracle, that everyone is being dirty slackers this semester and not wanting to cover a beat. Stringers are fine, but by and large, I have no use for them because they don't contribute in any meaningful and lasting way to the paper. They don't pay attention when you edit, they go to their classes above all else, they go to dinner before writing that story you need by 9 p.m. - it's just stomach-churningly frustrating to work with people who don't love this as much as I do. She knows we have a finite amount of space per paper, and the democratic process of budgeting when everyone gets a say (my own favorite time of the night), and how haphazardly stories are assigned when everyone is doing everyone else's work as well as their own, and how late news breaks and the hundred other things that influence what goes where and how long as to the paper. We do what we can with what we've got, and she decided she didn't want to anymore, not that it should disallow her from casting stones from her glass house on the hill.
What we do at that dingy office five days a week isn't a profitable undertaking. There is as much money in journalism as crying in Tom Hanks' baseball movie, as much respect as goth kids get in mall stores, as much love as a stray animal gets. There is no off-season, no bunting, no aluminum bats - nothing here in newspapers but love of the game, people. And for her to say what our "obligations" should be, her criticizing the work of our writers on the sidelines without sticking in and doing what she could've to keep it as good as it could be, that I can't have respect for and certainly can't justify printing.
But it was somebody else who made that decision, though she and some others would like to believe it was a call made by me purely out of spite. If that's the kind of principles others are doing their jobs by, then come forward so I can fire you where you stand. Frankly, I read her letter, and my reaction was to nod and say, yes, in this, we did not do so well. There was more to this story, and maybe if I were University Editor, maybe if I didn't have the odious task of cleaning up the paper in the myriad ways that make people stop reading after the second paragraph because the pronouns don't agree with their antecedents, maybe if we all were a little less strapped for resources we could've made this what it should've been, instead of continuing to wallow in mediocrity.
Does it matter that I think the fee is justifiably passed on to international students rather than footed by an already budget-stretched UF? No, it doesn't. Because a valid opinion is a valid opinion, and she opposes the fee on principle while I support it on practicality. Not to be too crass about it, but American kids aren't going abroad under the auspices of studying and blow up buildings instead. Which isn't to say that anyone at UF has such intentions, and my apologies to Ben Franklin, but I'm on the safe rather than sorry side of the camp on that one.
Anyhow, long story short, people suck, news is hard, but if we do better tomorrow, it's all worth it.
