A SINGLE issue of The Cavalier Daily does not exist in a vacuum. Each issue is part of a bigger picture, a long-running series of reports that will end up as one view of University history.
When a newspaper can enlarge the examination of an issue into multiple stories on multiple days, it does a great service to the current readership and future researchers.
The newspaper not only can cover an event, it can also explore the circumstances leading up to the event and then its aftermath - by doing so, a more complete picture emerges rather than an isolated snapshot.
The Cavalier Daily staff did a very nice job of getting a more complete picture in its Wednesday and Thursday editions with its coverage of a Tuesday night terrorism panel and a Wednesday speech by Dinesh D'Souza.
The story on the panel ("Expert panel discusses response to terrorism") was a little quote-heavy and too sequential (speaker one, then speaker two, and so on), but it still did an adequate job of picking out relevant points from each speaker.
The panel focused on the American response to terrorism. In the same issue as the panel story, the lead focus story ("Why is the United States a target?") looked at explanations of how the present state of terrorism came to be and presented some statements that clashed with those made at the panel.
The focus story also mentioned the speech to be given that evening by Dinesh D'Souza. In Thursday's newspaper, the coverage of D'Souza's speech ("Author discusses why U.S. has enemies") was solid, complete with quotes from attendees and a nice quote from the question-and-answer session.
The Cavalier Daily has done consistently good work covering the day-to-day events that have unfolded since the Sept. 11 attacks. With these three stories last week, the paper gave a glimpse into both how the tragedy may have come about and how future events may play out.
I did have one problem with the story on the terrorism panel. At one point, the reporter related that a speaker "used the opportunity to dispel common myths held regarding terrorist attacks." One man's myth may be another man's absolute truth - better phrasing here would have been to insert "what he called" (or a similar qualifier) in front of "common myths." Accepting a viewpoint as unquestioned fact is a big no-no.
The Cavalier Daily has also undertaken a daunting task - combating the inertia and/or apathy of some of its readership. Often when readers dislike something in the newspaper (or are angry something isn't in the newspaper), they complain to friends but do little else.
Throughout the semester, The Cavalier Daily has run advertisements urging readers to take action in three ways - writing letters to the editor, joining the staff, and letting the staff know about events. The last one is particularly important. With hundreds of organizations on Grounds, it is impossible to know about everything going on. Telling the newspaper about an event is no guarantee it will be covered, but it may open the door to future coverage. The staff wants interesting stories, but sometimes finding those stories can be difficult without some help.
Speaking of interesting stories, Thursday's sports page featured a nice feature on the Duke quarterback. I like stories on opposing players because they offer a balance to what can be a "go team" approach in college newspapers. But this story had a rather unusual ending. The last sentence was, "Peter Mina recently started a skateboarding club at the University to provide an outlet for their passion."
Obviously something went wrong here. In years past, I have seen The Cavalier Daily run the same story twice on the same front page before, so compared to that, this was a minor slip-up. But this mistake serves as a reminder that every system breaks down occasionally. It is minimizing the amount of and impact of these breakdowns, or the failure to do so, that can determine whether a college newspaper looks professional or amateurish.
The newspaper had some amateurish moments last week, especially in subheadlines - "Cavalier" instead of "Cavaliers," "affect" instead of "effect," "tempestous" instead of "tempestuous."
But some good work shone through as well. The first sentence of a story on a fairly tame topic - English majors getting master's degrees in five years - provided a spiced-up introduction: "The University is making it a little easier for English majors to take the road less traveled." Even a math major like myself could grasp the reference. Also, the news story "Battle for campaign funding heats up" mentioned the fundraising total for the Libertarian candidate for governor. It was just one sentence, but it made for a more complete story - chances are good that many people who read the story had not known Virginia had a third gubernatorial candidate. To come back to the initial topic, the importance of presenting the complete picture cannot be understated.
(Matthew Branson can be reached at ombuds@cavalierdaily.com.)
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