Last Monday, the front page of The Cavalier Daily featured a story about the disintegration of the space shuttle Columbia and resulting death of all seven astronauts aboard. The disaster had occurred the previous Saturday, a day that The Cavalier Daily does not publish.
A significant national or international news event occurring on the weekend presents a dilemma for a college newspaper. They can't ignore it, and if the story is still on the news radar come Monday, as the Columbia was, they can't bury it inside the paper. At the same time, they can't deliver a straight news account of what happened. People will already have heard the news, whether on television, on the Web or in national newspapers.
The Cavalier Daily did a pretty good job of covering its bases, providing some excellent photos and a basic summary of what had happened on Saturday as well as some University ties to the shuttle.
But an ombudsman can't settle for pretty good, so I'm going to take a look at what the paper could have done better in its coverage.
The first 11 paragraphs of the piece, bylined by a Cavalier Daily reporter, read like a breaking story. But the information had all been reported by other papers already and should have been included as background, not as the lead. The Cavalier Daily should have employed what is known as a "second-day lead," assuming that most of its readers knew the basic facts about what had happened. Given the information included in the rest of the story -- reaction from the community and the fact that an assistant dean had flown on the Columbia in a previous mission -- it would have been very easy to give the story a second-day lead.
Because of its lead, I suspect the story didn't get much attention. That's a shame, because there was a lot of good reporting and information of interest to the Charlottesville and University communities in it.
The Columbia coverage brings to mind another question that pops up perennially in discussions of college newspapers: What is a college paper's role when it comes to national and international news?
When I worked for The Cavalier Daily as a columnist and editor, which wasn't that long ago, I recall friends who didn't work at the newspaper complaining that the paper shouldn't even bother having national and international news sections. "If I want world news, I read The New York Times," one friend said.
Certainly, someone who wants to know all of the day's important world news won't limit his reading to The Cavalier Daily, and the papers cost restraints are such that it simply can't print all of the important world news. But I think the paper is correct to maintain the small national and international news sections that it does have, in the name of providing some context to local news.
But the paper occasionally tries to provide coverage of national events -- major elections come to mind -- mainly to give its reporters and photographers some experience in running with the big dogs of national news. When it comes to elections, I think that's OK, because the paper can usually do a pretty good job of providing the basics -- who won and by how much as well as some valuable comment from local pundits.
But when it comes to other national news, like the Columbia, the question of whether the paper should try to tackle the story with its own reporters is not as clear. A second-day article that localizes the story, such as the one the paper ran on Monday, is acceptable. But when there is breaking news in the national or international arena that the paper simply can't cover as well as professional media outlets, there's no shame in running a wire service story on the front page. It should come down to how the paper can best serve its readers. In cases like that, the paper can run a sidebar with local comment alongside the main story.
And on a completely different note, I have received a letter pointing out that The Cavalier Daily has twice misidentified the coach of the University's swim and dive team this semester. His name is Mark Bernardino, not Frank Bernandino, as he was identified in two articles at the end of January. The quality of swim and dive coverage has been a frequent issue for at least the last five years. While I have defended the newspaper when it comes to coverage of out-of-town events, there is no defense for getting the coach's name wrong, especially when he has been interviewed for an article.
(Masha Herbst can be reached at ombud
@cavalierdaily.com.)
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