I haven’t posted much lately. I haven’t merely been sitting around reading about journalism in The New Yorker. There was the tragic news of Minghui Yu, which demanded a lot of attention both as a concerned student and as a journalist trying to figure out what happened. There’s been a lot of late breaking news, too, like the Teachers College story and the empty but momentarily street-freezing bomb threat. When news breaks late, we have to decide whether to delay our printing of the paper, change the front page’s layout, spend time reporting, and finally have the paper come out later. It’s a case-by-case call, but what I look for in this case is to measure how much time reporting will take, how important the news is–and with that, how much will we lose by having the physical newspaper hit stands later–and, finally, whether we have enough original reporting (as opposed to citing the New York Times or Associated Press) to merit foregoing a simple update of the web site and reworking the physical paper. I originally wanted to comment on the NYer piece when it came out, but then the breaking news delayed that. I feel like the piece is a few years late anyway, so why not dive into it a little late?

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We put in a lot of hours at the Spectator, and sometimes we find that we haven’t sufficiently advertised to readers some of the products we’re most proud of. So, allow us a moment to describe one of those products:

As we are all coming upon spring break and getting ready for a bit of relaxation before the second half of the semester sets in, I wanted to take the time to reflect upon how many times my jaw has dropped looking at the amazing multimedia pieces we have created this semester. The introductions, the transitions, and the sound quality have been second to none within the college-daily “world.” I mean, can you honestly find the difference in quality between this multimedia piece on Obama from Spec to this New York Times video piece on Hillary?

At the beginning of the new year and the new 132nd Managing Board’s tenure at Spectator, the online section was the largest it had ever been, with nine total staffers. At the moment, we have grown to a total of five associate editors, five deputy editors, and myself, along with two new potential recruits to be interviewed after spring break. This means a lot for a section which only had one staffer this time last year. Read the rest of this entry »

Have you noticed any gaps in our coverage lately? Yes, it happens even here in the Spec news department (hard as it may be for you to believe) and we want your help in figuring out our weaknesses.

Easily the most difficult task in running any all-volunteer organization is keeping together a staff each semester. This is all the more the case at a student org like the Spec, which has a daily product to put out each and every day. Every September, we receive a training class for of eager freshmen, many of whom over the course of the year satisfy their curiosity about journalism and understandably gravitate to other interests. Unfortunately, we have nothing to offer recruits except the thrill of seeing their name in print and a steady supply of V&T’s pizza. By the spring semester, we’re left with a hardcore crew of new Speccies who love journalism enough, or perhaps are simply masochistic enough, to put up with late nights, a brutal production cycle, and the admittedly tempestuous nature of (at least one of) the news editors.

This flux over the course of the year has tremendous ramifications for the way we cover the news. While we wish every former newsie well on their Spec-less explorations of Columbia, we lament the knowledge that we lose each time we lose a writer or former editor, as well as the imbalance in our content that each gap leaves.

These gaps are more apparent at the beginning of the spring than any other time of year as the new news editors adjust to their new positions. To take one funny example, if you feel like you’ve been reading a lot about subways in the Spec lately, you’re right. It just turns out that one of our most productive rising star first year this year is new associate news editor Maggie Astor, our transit beat chief (meaning that’s her primary area of coverage), and she’s taken the beat position as a mandate to go nuts (if you still haven’t watched her multimedia project about riding all of New York’s subway lines in one day, look for it in our multimedia section now). Another of our tremendous new associates, Alix Pianin, has been closely covering a school, General Studies, which often in the past has fallen through the cracks of our coverage.

There is a darker underbelly to this phenomenon, which is that we lose the knowledge of those writers who we don’t retain. Our prolific SEAS beat chief stepped down at the beginning of the semester to focus on academics (boo!), leaving a noticeable void in our coverage of an important undergraduate college. In the ideal world, we’d also have a much bigger staff to keep us connected with both faculty members and student groups than we have so far this year. In the absence of staffers to fill those niches, the rest of our coverage also suffers as our writers and deputy editors take time and energy away from their regular pursuits to compensate.

Just to be clear, not all of these imbalances are inherently bad, especially when our prolific transit beat chief can make something interesting out of what could be a dry beat. However, problems emerge when we start to miss out on important stories simply because of insufficient staffing. Thus, as the novelty of our not-so-new jobs wears off, a major priority of those of us in the news section will be to evaluate and address the gaps in our coverage before we miss something too big.

Here’s where you–the loyal reader–can help us out. Have you noticed anything that we’ve covered insufficiently so far this year? Missed entirely? Drop me a line at jacob.schneider@columbiaspectator.com or just comment on this post and we’ll take a look.

We received a perceptive comment from a reader noting that we might be missing the point of this blog if we don’t comment on the process of developing our stories and describe how the big decisions are made. I think the note was right on. The design of this blog was to take last year’s news editor’s blog (almost solely dedicated to posts about process, and pretty successful in that regard) and expand that model with a broader scope (journalism in general) with more contributors (the entire managing board). So far we haven’t come through with enough posts on how we arrive at our final product. This is something we’ve already been discussing lately - blogging is a difficult endeavor, even Josh’s popular attempt became tedious once the semester spiraled into “Ahmadineamania” - but we will definitely try harder. Thanks for the feedback! (incidentally, check out this NYTimes piece featuring a Wal-Mart blog…it speaks to both an interesting media project by an American corporation and the difficulties of blogging authentically without sounding like pr)

On that note, I’ve been meaning to write about how we covered the plagiarism at Teachers College. Notice the title of this post uses specific language - “TC Plagiarism,” as opposed to “Constantine,” “Noose Victim,” or anything else that may get bandied about in other media outlets or almost certainly the blogosphere. As we saw it, the story here was that a Teachers College professor had allegedly committed plagiarism, copying without accreditation the work of a fellow faculty member and two students. Many newspapers and blogs played up the noose incident of October (it catches their readers’ eye, I guess), some even throwing in loose allusions to the possibility that Prof. Constantine placed the noose on her own door. When we first got wind of the story, we knew we had to be very careful about the information we received, where we got it, and how we reported on it.

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Particularly with the visit of Washington Post editor Len Downie just days away (whose speech we should have up online soon, for those who are curious), some of us at Spec followed closely the development of the rival New York Times‘ now-infamous story detailing (sort of) the romantic/professional ties of Republican candidate Senator John McCain with various lobbyists. The piece, which broke the story and was followed quickly by a Post article the same day (and which Downie admitted the Post needed before running their piece) took close to a year to develop. It drew instant backlash - to the point that the actual news was lost on some. Here, the Times editors respond to readers’ questions on everything from reporting logistics to the ethical merits of the decision to run the piece without what some would call key evidence. These Q&As with editors can make for great reads - at the same time, one can sometimes feel the judicious calculations made by the Times in how they pick and choose their response. Note, for example, a question about the Editorial side’s endorsement of McCain and whether it conflicts or has any relation to the News side’s work. While it may have been a coincidence, the Times was well-served by having the politics editor answer that one - after all, by its very nature, that editor could not speak for the Editorial side.

Also, an aside: Stephen Colbert’s hilarious segment on the “bad…bad journalism” exhibited by the Times. As one former Spec editor mentioned, maybe the “newspaper of record” simply got this one right, regardless?

Now, the actual point of this post. Thinking about the McCain story makes me think of the state of the media in general. If the Times can be discredited so well, so quickly, on a piece that took months of reporting, fact-checking, and editorial review, it seems anything can happen. Regardless of how one feels about the piece (I’m still iffy on its validity, myself), it speaks to the power of the press today, when watchdog journalism carries with it the perils of instant vilification in the blogosphere. The mainstream media, however small or traditional (read: reactionary) its role in the world, must feel threatened by all this. The Times also reports on an alternative form of media, Wikileaks.org, being shut down by a federal judge, drawing comparisons to the Supreme Court Pentagon Papers case. Ironically, the article reports:
“The feebleness of the action suggests that the bank, and the judge, did not understand how the domain system works or how quickly Web communities will move to counter actions they see as hostile to free speech online.”
Perhaps the Internet will save journalism? Perhaps.

I’ve been slow to post lately - there’s been a lot going on. The Spec is happy to welcome Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. to Low Library Saturday night for our annual Blue Pencil lecture event. Mr. Downie, long-time top dog at the Post, will speak at 8:30 p.m. He’ll describe his views on the journalism industry and talk about diversity in a newsroom, the war in Iraq, and top stories making the news cycle. Semi-formal attire is requested.

It’s Valentine’s Day, which means we’re a little low on staffers tonight - while some of us call Spec our significant other, many Speccies are actually out on dates - but we’re hoping the Weekend section (a perennial late-nighter) will match The Eye, which PDF’ed at 3:30 a.m., a record for the year (possibly longer). Of course, the late breaking story on, well, Barnard pipes breaking, kept us in the office for a few more hours. But last night the News team came together in excellent fashion, as the editors coordinated with Photo and a number of reporters on the scene (read: knee-deep in sewage/murky water).

On a more sober note, reports are streaming in of a gunman opening fire on an Illinois campus today. It’s sad, perplexing news. We here at the Spec have to figure out whether - and if so, how - to cover the tragedy. The precedent is technically set by the Virginia Tech incident of last year. What we’ll do now is ask ourselves if this compares, if there’s a local angle, and if we have the logistical support to cover it. While we’re all shocked by the news, this might be one for our readers to follow in the Times and Illinois papers, CNN, or Google News.

During one of my classes on Tuesday, I received the following e-mail from Tom Faure: “Yeah, my winter coat’s zipper is broken and I haven’t slept since Sunday. It’s time for a snowball fight. RIGHT NOW. … If you want a chance to throw snowballs at Amanda Sebba you may do so anytime–fire at will–no need to organize.” Putting aside the fact that it is NOT okay to throw snowballs at me anytime, Tom’s idea was great. We didn’t end up having our snowball fight until later that night, but it was worth the wait—and the 26 e-mails that followed Tom’s in the g-mail chain in order to plan the event.

Around 9, about half of the managing board headed down to Riverside Park to act like 8-year-olds. Our snowball fight turned into more of a snow fight, since the snow was too powdery to pack (being from Florida, I clearly know a lot about snowball-making techniques). The scene was exactly what you’d expect from a bunch of editors who have spent a lot of time together in recent weeks. Perhaps unsurprisingly, our sports editor decided that tackling people made it a lot easier to throw snow at them. Our online editor took some great photos that might make their way onto this blog eventually, but her camera was hit by more than one snowball in the process. Our finance director made some impressive sneak attacks. And, in case you were wondering, the girls won the fight.

When it was all over—i.e., when our hands were too cold to continue—we went back to the office for some hot chocolate. Finally, we all settled back into our editing jobs and put out the paper, since, you know, we needed to get around to that at some point.

The Eye got an awesome e-mail this week; I wanted to share it, but not badly enough to print it. (I hate talking about poop–this seriously qualifies as a “thing” with me—and I didn’t want the subject to grace our pages two weeks in a row.)

Here’s a link to the original article.

The e-mail is pasted below.

Dear Mr. Raphael Pope-Sussman,

I will have you know that the fist person who, having closed a toilet seat, took it into his head to say this is mine and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. I should say immediately that I, too, used to have my own toilet. Twas indeed a throne, and I confess I know the “corpulent and pasty thighs” of those strangers of whom you speak. They haunted me for a time, but then I became a Communist. Now I share my toilet openly with all - and I highly recommend you yourself take a spin on it. (Get in touch, but wait until you’re sure it’s gonna be a good one.) You will not fail to be impressed with what Wien has to offer, except in one very important category that I sure you’re familiar with.

My complaints reside not with your pseudo-Lockean drivel, of course, but with the insensitivity I perceived in your diatribe to my own anal sensitivity. You’re right: You are no rocket scientist. And just four people shouldn’t go through an entire roll of toilet paper every day. It is this very intelligent declaration that concerns me, but not as a jumping-ground for suspicion of some hygienic intruder like perhaps my socialist self, as you intended it to be. Instead, I see your reflection as a noble and furious testimony of the greatest challenge facing Columbia University and every institutional bathroom in the Universe:

bad

toilet

paper.

Allow me to explain. The toilet paper at this revoltingly rich, elite University has the texture of fucking sandpaper. Besides providing my guests and myself with that acute sensation one might imagine a diamond feels at the polisher’s, the stuff they call toilet paper here doesn’t even work. The highly inefficient process of using more to wipe more only compounds the problem of anal pore suffering. On a good day, with a nice solid turd, I can cap off at three wipes. Most days aren’t good days. I hope this helps you to understand the dearth of toilet paper situation you mention, which I suggest we rename “the excess of coated-abrasives situation.” To repeat, you have no toilet precisely because it doesn’t work.

So we have a problem to solve. Often when people have problems to solve, they ask, “What next?” I have often considered we go on a poop strike. I can hear it now replaying endlessly on Fox News: “DEAN COLUMBO, HELP MY BUM YO!” We will most certainly invite Bollinger and his wife to come shit on the port-A-potties we could set up on Low Steps. When it’s time to wipe, you know what they’re getting.

Or, I could just save us all the fun and buy my own toilet paper. I hope I have found in you a sympathetic reader.

Yours truly,

Christopher Brian Duncan

I have been highly impressed by what a huge leap the online section has taken with multimedia projects. The slide shows with and without audio are very well put together and have a very professional, NYT styled appeal. Multimedia mainly focuses on expanding what is on print. Question is, should they go beyond that? The photo department just created a new position (photo multimedia deputy) to help expand and give online (with emphasis on multimedia) more of its own identity. Alanna Vaughns, the person who was chosen to take on this new role that has yet to have a solidified identity, will provide photo’s outreach to multimedia projects since we are so involved in it. The question of identity is a bigger one now that we have people who focus solely on multimedia. For now I see multimedia as just continuing with expanding on print content with the occasional side project. But the future holds many possibilities for this section, especially since this format of reporting is where the future lies and has so much untapped potential. Hopefully with the addition of the new deputy, we can focus even more on multimedia and fully develop its respective personality as part of the Spectator, representing each section and maybe even beyond that.