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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (May 1, 1998)
I Fit to print I Editor clears up misconceptions in final column I hp OOP PntPnon \I/P nr»f llCP ic A MO poll floa onnrnnnofo oapfipn arli ( “ ' “ ' I PAULA LAVIGNE is a senior news-editorial major and the Daily Nebraskan editor. Unless your career will be cultivat ing coconuts on a small remote island with an unpronounceable name, chances are that no matter where you go, you’re going to live in a city with a newspaper. It could be as big as The New York Times or as small as The York News Times - or smaller. Regardless of the size, the newspa per industry has a lot of common traits - many of which we espouse here at the Daily Nebraskan. One thing I’ve noticed as editor is that many readers misunderstand how a newspaper works. A newspaper of any size can have an impact on a community (or cam pus). Before you leave for the summer or for your career, I want to clear up a few things before you go somewhere where you actually have to PAY for the local rag. Plus, I'm sick of bitmg my tongue. Lesson No. 1: The crossword puz zle. , . . . . .. * The one criterion we do not use is whether we agree with the letter. We often run letters that criticize our columns, articles or missing cross word puzzles. We run letters that con tradict other letters. However, we do draw a line at profanity and vulgar personal attacks. We run letters from administra tors, politicians, organization presi dents, greeks, alumni, community leaders and students. And we give Joe Student the same opportunity as we do James Moeser. Letters come by e-mail, mail and fax. To be honest, your chances of being published are greater if you send e-mail (because of its immediacy). We also edit all letters. This does n’t mean we go through and cut the things out that we don’t agree with. We find the main argument and pre serve that within the space we have for the letter. Some letters do run longer than others. It just depends on how much can be cut without taking away the real “meat” of the message. Remember, if your letter is longer than the normal letter length you see on the opinion pages, it will be cut. If you are worried about your let ter being cut, edit it before you send it. The strongest letters are those that are AND call the appropriate section edi tor after you’ve sent it to give it a little oomph. Lesson No. 4: When we just can’t. There are some times when we just can’t find a reporter to cover something. Newspapers have limited staffs, and they try to do the best they can, but sometimes they’re short staffed. Here, where reporters also are students, they may not be able to cover something because of a class. Sometimes we’ll be able to have someone cover an event, but we won’t have room to run the story. Our news papers’ sizes are based on how many advertisements are sold. The size can vary every day. If a story doesn’t fit in the print version for that day, we may hold it or run it on our online newspa per at www.unl.edu/DailyNeb. Lesson No. 5: Conspiracy theory. Stories are run based on their prominence, timeliness and interest. We don’t have an “agenda” that determines what stories we run. Most of the time we’re ambivalent, really. The Daily Nebraskan staff is made up of conservatives, liberals, greeks, non-greeks, undergraduates, graduate students, country music fans, Afghan Whigs fans. Spice Girl fans, people who hate Spanish 202, people who are I am scared and disappomted b" fluent in three languages, Texans, the people who stake the entire integrity of the news paper on whether or not the crossword puzzle runs. But many of you like it, so here's the deal. The A&E section needs one full page. The classifieds, which vary almost every day, cannot run onto that page. So, if the classifieds are just a bit* too long and might run onto that page, we cut things such as the cartoons and crossword puzzles. We can’t cut ads because people have paid for them. Take it as a fact of life that some days the puzzle won't run. The only solution for this is to go to the book store and buy one of those big crossword puzzle books. I'm sftre you'll enjoy it, and it won’t leave ink on your hands. Lesson No. 2: Letters to the editor. This is a point of con tention for many people. When someone sends in a let ter, and it doesn't run, an angry phone call is sure to follow. When someone sends in a letter, and it’s been short Ann Miller/DN DAILY NEBRASKAN staff, from left; front, Dawn Dietrich, Nikki Fox; second row, Lindsay Young, Lisa Vonnahme, Sarah Baker, Jamie Ziegler; third row, Diane Broderick, Gregg Stearns, Heidi White, Tasha Kelter, Tony Toth, Ryan Soderlin; fourth row, Jessica Fargen, Brad Davis, Jeff Randall, Ted McCaslin, Bret Schulte, Jason Hardy, Ted Taylor, Chad Lorenz; fifth row, Anthony Colman, Todd Anderson, leva Augstums, Paula Lavigne, Erin Schulte, Erin Gibson, Matt Miller, Brian Carlson; sixth row, Josh Funk, Darren Ivy, Scott McClurg, David Wilson, James Nicas, Lane Hickenbottom, Jon Frank, Andrew Strnad, Kasey Kerber, Bryce Glenn ened there s another call waiting in my voice mailbox. On an average day, we get about five letters to the editor. We just can't print all five. The larger the newspaper, the larg er the volume of letters, the bigger the problem. The way we choose which letters we're going to print is based on sever al criteria, including: ■ How timely the letter is to the issue it is addressing. This means if you're responding to a column (or article) that ran on Monday, and your letter comes Tuesday, there's a greater chance we'll run it than if it arrives four days later. ■ How many letters we’ve received regarding the same topic. If one column receives 20 letters, and many of the letters express the same point of view, then there’s no need to run 20 letters saymg the same thing. ■ How much editing the letter requires. I’ll be honest, letters that are three pages long will likely be held until we can contact the writer and talk about how to cut it to fit. If another, similar letter comes in that is shorter, it’ll probably run instead. ■ If the writer includes the required identification (name, major, hometown, phone number). We do not run anonymous letters. Besides, iden tification gives the letter validity. clear, concise and to the point. They should include your name, major (for students), hometown (for nonstudents), graduation year (for alumni), title and organization affilia tion (if any) and your phone number so we can contact you to verify that you are indeed the sender. Now, if you don't think a letter is long enough to get your point across, you can submit a guest column or edi torial. We rarely run these, but if your point is strong enough then we might consider it. To do this, call the opinion pages editor in advance. Otherwise, we might treat it as a letter and cut it to fit. OK, enough about the opmion pages. Lesson No. 3: Coverage. We get a lot of calls from people who complain because we didn't cover their event. There could be many reasons for this. As much as we wish we were, we are not telepathic. We try to stay on top of things, but sometimes the infor mation doesn’t get to us. Jtf you want us to cover an event, you must send us information about the event including the date, time, place, contact people and phone num bers and cost (if any). And send it at least three days ahead of time. And it doesn’t hurt to send the information Floridians, Coloradans and a lot of Big Red-blooded Huskers. If we even tried to set an agenda we'd cause a civil war. Lesson No. 6: OK, I lied. We did have one agenda this year: Diversity. Even though our staff has a good gender balance, it's more than 90 percent white. The percentage of minority coverage in our,newspaper. though, is much higher. 1 don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we've consciously bumped up our diversity coverage of minority issues this year. That is an agenda - and a good one. We actually have a diversity reporter in charge of making sure we do as much as we can to promote awareness on campus. We're probably the best vehicle to create awareness because we reach 16,000 people - mainly students - every day. 1 hope it has worked this year and continues working in the future. Lesson No. 7: Play ball. Because we are a campus newspa per, our sports policy has been to pro vide daily coverage of only varsity sports. (This is why you’ll see the women’s varsity bowling team written about more than the men’s team, which, because of Title IX, is still a club sport.) Watch for DN workers in a location near you You might see some familiar names this summer depending on where you go. Several Daily Nebraskan staff members have jobs or summer internships at newspapers or across the nation. Some of them also are enrolling in pro grams or occupations outside of daily newspa pers. Editor Paula Lavigne, summer reporting intern at The Baltimore Sun Managing Editor Chad Lorenz, summer editing intern at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Associate News Editor Erin Schulte, reporter at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Associate News Editor Ted Taylor, reporter at The Daily Sentinel in Grand Junction, Colo. Assignment Editor Enn Gibson, summer reporting intern at The Bakersfield (Calif.) Californian Sports Editor David Wilson, summer sports reporting intern at the Post Register in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Senior Sports Reporter Shannon Heffelfinger. summer reporting intern at the Arlington (Texas) Morning News Sports Reporter Sarah Dose, summer sports reporting intern at The Cincinnati Inquirer Assignment News Reporter Jessica Fargen, summer reporting intern at The Grand Island Independent Assignment News Reporter Lindsay Young, summer reporting intern at The Norfolk Daily News Senior News Reporter Brad Davis, "Reporting in London" program through Michigan State University Senior News Reporter Brian Carlson. Institute on Political Journalism at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. Senior News Reporter Josh Funk, camp counselor in Denmark through the European Staff Camp Programme and the World Scout Organization Senior A&E Reporter Sarah Baker, mar keting intern at HDR Architects in Omaha Copy Desk Chief Bryce Glenn, plumbing journeyman in Lincoln Copy Editor Emily Wray, Dow Jones edit ing intem at The Palm Beach Post, West Palm Beach. Fla. Copy Editor Heidi White, Dow Jones edit ing intem at Newsday in Long Island, N.Y. Assistant Copy Desk Chief Rebecca Stone, Dow Jones editing intem at the Traverse City (Mich.) Record-Eagle Assistant Copy Desk Chief Diane Broderick, editing intem at The (Boise) Idaho Statesman Copy Editor Tasha Keiter, editing intem at The Plain Dealer, in Cleveland Opinion Editor Kasey Kerber, summer reporting intem at the Daily Sun in Lady Lake, Fla. Photo Chief Ryan Soderlin, photo intem at the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin in Ontario, Calif. Senior Photographer Matt Miller, photo intem at The (Boise) Idaho Statesman Photographer Lane Hickenbotton, photo intern at The News-Record in Gillette, Wyo. Photographer Dan Luedert, photo intem at The Gazette in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Photographer Jon Houghton, photo/report ing intem at the Kearney Hub Assistant Online Editor Amy Pemberton, pre-press specialist at Specialty Finishing in Omaha Co-Design Chief Jamie Ziegler, program coordinator with marketing firm Spearl Productions in Dallas Co-Design Chief Tony Toth, canvassing Europe for employment possibilities Former Opinion Editor Joshua Gillin. page designer at the Pittsburgh (Penn.) Tribune Review Designer Jen Walker, Summer Daily Nebraskan co-editor Sports Reporter Darren Ivy. Summer Daily Nebraskan co-editor Summer Daily Nebraskan workers are Jeff Randall, Anthony Colman, Matt Haney, Melanie Falk, Jon Frank, Marni Speck, leva Augstums. Tim Karstens. Nancy Christensen. Sam McKewon, Jim Zavodnv and Barb Churchill, among other new and returning staff. Every once in a while we’ll pro vide coverage of non-varsity sports in the sports section, but most of our club sport coverage is actually in the news (or sometimes A&E) sections. We don't have the money to go to every sporting event out of town, but we try to go to as many tournaments as possible. We also try to provide equal cover age of men’s and women’s sports, and we try to cover every sport from foot ball to swimming. The reality is, however, that we will give more coverage to football than other sports because from a Nebraskan's day of conception, we know that football is God. More people want to read about football more often. And that’s just the way it has to be. Lesson No. 8: Balance. Remember when I mentioned how different our staff members are? Well, because people have different prefer ences and experiences - and belong to different organizations - they will have a bias when it comes to an issue. This is true for almost every reporter at every newspaper. It’s human nature to have an opinion. What should differentiate reporters is their ability to prevent that opinion from tipping the balance of a news story. A reporter who has voted Republican in every election since he turned 18 should be able to write a balanced story about a debate between his favorite candidate and the oppos ing Democrat. A reporter who hates the greek system should be able to write a good story about a sorority’s philanthropy. And good journalists should never jump to conclusions. Do we have good journalists? Yes, we do. We also have reporters, photog raphers, editors, designers and artists who are learning. And, yeah, they'll make mistakes here at the Daily Nebraskan. Sometimes, that’s what college is for. They do learn from those mistakes and become better journalists from them. Maybe by the time you settle down in a new town and buy a subscription to the local newspaper, you’ll see a name you recognize from the Daily Nebraskan. I hope it will be a name you trust. Lane Hickenbottom/DN DAILY NEBRASKAN advertising staff, from left; back row, Dustin Black, Mike Fuller, Jared Holmes, Rebecca Dankleff; front row, Dan Thomas, Jessikah Gilmore, Ann Miller, Andrea Oeltjen, Tara West, Daniel Lam
