One of the foundational problems with the April Fools’ edition of the Cavalier Daily was that it seemed to be written almost entirely for the people writing it. The jokes seemed like in-jokes and many clearly didn’t translate to the readers as intended. This is something I presume all publications have to deal with and not just for special joke issues; making sure that what gets published is interesting to and accessible for readers, not just for the writers and editors doing the work. I imagine this is especially difficult in a not-for-profit, collegiate publication where there may be less objective feedback than in larger, for-profit organizations where subscription rates, advertising dollars and page hits are more able to tell the story of how the publication is doing in attracting and maintaining readers.
Frequently, the pieces in The Cavalier Daily that get the most attention from readers, at least in terms of comments and letters, are Opinion columns. I think this is, in part, because news articles, by their very nature, are less controversial and offer less fodder for criticism. Beyond that, though, Opinion columns also draw readers’ interest because it gives them a place to think about where their own opinion fits into the author’s description of an issue or problem. The best Opinion columns offer both space for the reader to take an interest in and think about as well as a possible solution to the problem the author presents. If Opinion columns aren’t about things readers will find engaging, the potential solutions may not matter at all.
The last couple of weeks in The Cavalier Daily’s Opinion pages have included a lot of inside baseball. That is to say, there have been several pieces that seem written mostly for those who work for The Cavalier Daily. Ashley Spinks offered columns in the last two weeks that are strongly critical of the Managing Board. First, Spinks wrote about the decision to use Brand Link and offered a great deal of granular information about internal paper decision making. I’m not sure that information is helpful to readers.
The following week, this past Wednesday, Spinks wrote about the April Fools’ edition itself, offering more specific criticism of the Managing Board’s decisions in the wake of its retraction of some pieces. Some of the criticism was well founded, to my way of thinking. Pulling the PDF copy of the issue may have been a bit much. But I am also not sure that inspecting every action of the Managing Board every week in the Opinion pages is helpful for readers. For instance, critiquing the Managing Board for pulling the link to the April Fools’ issue at the top of each page of the website missed the mark as that link would have been pulled for faculty salary data regardless of any controversy.
I understand the impetus of those who work for The Cavalier Daily to try to improve the paper through the use of their space in the Opinion pages. That space, though, isn’t mainly for the use of the improvement of the paper. While I do think there is criticism to offer, granular level information about everything done at the paper doesn’t seem to attract much reader attention or interaction.
To do a good job in news coverage, one needs to be able to write clearly and choose topics that are important to readers. To do a good job in offering opinions that are salient to readers, one must write well, give the reader a reason to care about the topic outside of only what the writer believes is important. Recent op-eds haven’t appeared to offer readers much that they wish to engage with.
Christopher Broom is the Public Editor for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at publiceditor@cavalierdaily.com or on Twitter at @CDPublicEditor.
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