Who is Matthew Branson, and what's an ombudsman? As the academic year gets rolling, and my weekly column makes its debut, I hope to answer both of these questions.
I graduated from the University in 1996, and I am currently in my final year of law school at the University. I was a sportswriter before returning to Charlottesville, and my work has appeared in the Daily Progress, Northern Virginia Daily, Richmond Times-Dispatch, and Washington Times. I worked as a writer, page designer and copy editor, so my knowledge of what goes into producing a newspaper is fairly broad.
Disclosure alert: As an undergraduate, I was sports editor and managing editor of this very publication. Don't worry - I am not a cheerleader for The Cavalier Daily, and that leads me to the answer for the second question.
My role has two parts. The first is to critique The Cavalier Daily - commend it for what it does well, but also be ready to take it to task when it falls short of journalistic competence. The second part involves the readership - when you wonder why the paper did something a certain way, or why it covered one event and not another, feel free to send me an e-mail. E-mails will not receive personal responses in most cases, but my responses should find their way into this column.
Now, for my thoughts on The Cavalier Daily's first week back.
The overall redesign is incredible. The old Cavalier Daily approach - and the old approach of many newspapers - was substance over style, information over appearance. What resulted was a solid newspaper, but not a very attractive product. The paper's new look puts information and appearance on equal footing.
Almost every section features some type of dominant graphical element - this is a must. But the increased use of photos and graphics creates the risk of less space for stories. The Cavalier Daily has dealt with this problem superbly by creating more space, allowing its stories to "jump" - journalese for the second part of a story being on another page - and adding even more features on the inside pages.
But I am not here only to throw laurels on the paper's doorstep. The Cavalier Daily made a major mistake in its Aug. 25 move-in issue, specifically in its story about Craig Littlepage becoming the new athletics director ("Littlepage sheds interim status, becomes new athletics director").
Littlepage is black. He now runs the athletic department. At an institution such as the University, with its checkered history - at best - regarding its treatment of blacks, this is a historic move deserving of notice.
Littlepage is the first black athletics director in Atlantic Coast Conference history. Read that again: ACC history. He is now AD at a Southern public university that has never had a black head coach. Never.
None of this was mentioned in The Cavalier Daily's article. Although it would be nice to think that in the 21st century, we live in a colorblind society, that is not the case. The story had quotes, it covered the press conference, and it covered Littlepage's work history - but it failed to mention the historic step the administration took in hiring him.
The Cavalier Daily does not have, and usually has not had, many black staffers - nowhere near the percentage of the student body as a whole. The paper has frequently been the target of criticism for being insensitive to the black community at the University. Oversights such as this one only provide more fodder for those taking shots at the newspaper.
The press conference for Littlepage was on Tuesday, Aug. 21. The article was buried on page 23 of the move-in issue, which is primarily directed at first-year students. I found no other mention of it in subsequent issues. No editorials, no columns - nothing. To give short shrift to such a milestone in University history is to do an incredibly poor job as the news recorders of the University.
Three more quick points: First, the Life story on cancelled classes ("Canceled: Classes perform a disappearing act," Aug. 29) was an example of a complete and well-done package - a well-written and well-researched story with a good lead and quotes from several sources, as well as a high-quality graphic, headline and use of fonts.
Second, Friday's headline that "Research reveals racial bias in LSAT" oversteps its bounds. According to the story, the study revealed a disparity in LSAT scores among races - but to say an institutional bias against non-white test takers was "revealed" may be a case of stating a conclusion without appropriate data.
Third, aside from the normal typos and misspelled words (although some were in headlines - ouch) that accompany a new semester, there was one other mistake that cannot escape mention. A Life story in Monday's paper ("The Good Book") mentioned that Thomas Jefferson has been dead for 161 years - wrong. He died in 1826, which was 175 years ago. The University's newspaper should be able to keep its Jefferson facts straight.
(Matthew Branson can be reached at ombuds@cavalierdaily.com.)
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