THE VIRGINIA General Assembly got a lot of attention from The Cavalier Daily's News staff last week.
Every issue of the newspaper except Thursday's contained an article on something happening in Richmond. Articles that appeared in The Cavalier Daily on Monday ("House passes bill prohibiting illegal aliens from higher ed," Feb. 14) and Friday ("General Assembly alters charter bill," Feb. 18) described legislative actions that could have direct implications for the University. A bill designed to limit bullying in elementary schools, which was described in Wednesday's paper ("Bullying bill approved in Senate, moves to House," Feb. 16), likely won't affect any University students, but the article made for an interesting read.
The other article about the General Assembly ("General Assembly outlines budget," Feb. 15) discussed proposed budget amendments from the House and Senate and the process for resolving any differences between the two chambers' bills. The Cavalier Daily presented the budget story in a manner similar to the bullying article -- an interesting story that will have a minimal impact on the University. But a key piece of information buried deep in the article suggests the paper should have treated the budget more like the other two articles.
One of the last paragraphs of the article mentions that the House and Senate bills differ on suggested spending for higher education. If I were a student or faculty member reading that paragraph, I would instantly wonder about the size of the difference and what it means to me.
The paper addressed that concern with only a quote from Robert Voughn, the staff director of the House Appropriations Committee. Voughn simply said "the House did better for higher education as a whole," which tells readers nothing about whether the competing bills would have different effects on tuition, faculty salaries, money for supplies and other types of funding.
I've mentioned before that reporters and editors always have to ask themselves, "Why should my readers care about this subject?" The Cavalier Daily's readers care about Virginia's budget because it affects the quality of their education, the amount of tuition they have to pay or their salaries. Tuesday's article should have focused on that information before describing the negotiating process.
Tracking charter bill changes
Sticking with the General Assembly theme, Associate Editor Alex Sellinger added a good article to The Cavalier Daily's continuing coverage of the charter issue.
The article in Friday's paper explained changes that House and Senate committees made to the Higher Education Reform Act, which could give state universities room to make more financial decisions without legislative approval.
Sellinger did an excellent job of showing readers what the committee changes mean for the bill and how several people with an interest in the legislation responded to the changes. Sellinger also included a few paragraphs on the history of the bill and the debate surrounding it. That information placed the new developments in the proper context and allowed anyone who hasn't been paying attention to the issue to quickly catch up.
Truth in photography
Consumer groups often talk about "truth in advertising" when they analyze how well a product works compared to what an advertisement says it will do. A similar principle applies to news photography. Photojournalists should accurately show what has happened and or is happening through their images.
Associate Editor Caroline Freeman wrote an article Feb. 9 ("Law schools seek to ban military recruiters from university campuses") about the efforts of some law schools to ban military recruiters because they argue the military's policies against homosexuals clash with university anti-discrimination policies. The Cavalier Daily ran a photo next to Freeman's article showing three people in battle dress uniform walking around Grounds. The cutline, or caption, under the article said, "Law schools nationwide say military officers should not be able to recruit on campus."
As an Air Force ROTC cadet pointed out last week in a letter to the editor ("Recognizing ROTC," Feb. 15), the photo and cutline mislead readers. The cutline left readers with the impression that three recruitment officers were wandering around Grounds, but the photo actually shows ROTC cadets who weren't recruiting University students for the military.
Law Prof. Robert O'Neil said in Freeman's article that recruiters interview interested University students in the Judge Advocate General's Corps School located next to the Law School, which effectively eliminates the issue at U.Va. A shot of an officer at the JAG school interviewing a student would have represented the story more accurately and would have prevented readers from associating the cadets with recruitment officers.
Jeremy Ashton can be reached at ombud@cavalierdaily.com.
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