The “Days on the Lawn” are upon us. Thousands of high school students have begun to swarm Grounds with parents in tow. These aspiring pupils at Thomas Jefferson’s school will be peppered with tours and talks concerning the unique “experience” this institution provides. Such is the nature of collegiate admissions, after all. It is a time to make the life-changing decision to pursue higher education.
In the background, though, those blue Cavalier Daily boxes will lurk along the endless promenades they’ll take. What will they represent to these possibly admitted parties? Beyond being mentioned as the daily student newspaper here, it’s difficult to formulate a consensus. Everyone, of course, has a different opinion of the job this journal plays here. Seeing a Cavalier Daily issue, or entering in its URL into a web browser, is a fresh experience for those uninitiated.
What typically isn’t talked about is the precarious position the college newspaper worker occupies. I don’t mean to toot my own horn, or pump the tires of my fellow scribes and editors. But consider the glut of information that satiates the average student’s day, from social networks to newsfeeds. There’s a lot to sift through. And for an incoming pupil at this University, The Cavalier Daily and other publications face the challenge of wedging their ways into such foundations of news. They must become relevant to the new reader.
The task is not simple, as I’ve mused in a past column. With each incoming student class, the new stacks of information upon our lives or the new technological advents emerging every second, novel challenges to appeal to readership arise. What responsibility does the collegiate newspaper possess within all this chaos? Quite a few. I’ve argued before that our school’s media outlets can foster the diverse voices on Grounds and bridge the gap between the University and greater community. The Cavalier Daily, in particular, has performed those tasks, and then some. Its greatest strength is to realize the panoptic position it has above the routines of student life. It thusly has the power to pinpoint aspects of it worth the insightful exposure and criticism.
Is the question, then, what The Cavalier Daily should and will impress upon the minds of new and old readers? Are there established benchmarks it must meet because of our other expectations from mass media? And should the University’s primary paper follow such trends?
Answers lie on both ends. There are advantages to both paper and pixelated journalism, no doubt, and The Cavalier Daily has taken them. It now has a constant online presence to complement the gravitas of its tabloid counterpart. But those changes have not accelerated or altered the rate of reporting entirely. Stories run each week on issues local or global, bonded by the common viewpoint of the student. While that privilege can be limited to a few participants in The Cavalier Daily’s production, it should not inhibit the critical viewpoints that can be found in between them, as well.
With this new readership forming on Grounds this week, I call upon The Cavalier Daily to merely remember the place it can occupy within it. It should not represent itself in ways unbecoming of its democratic position. Rather, it should not be afraid to criticize the community it exists in and exhibit such scrutiny openly. It has done so in past and present, and should continue to do so. If there is an ideal for the paper to abide by, let it be the maintenance and sustenance of openness and fearlessness in student-based journalism. Such an impression is proper for new pupils to see, and perhaps propagate themselves, at a university that can always use more of both.
Sasan Mousavi 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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