November 17, 2005Is good news no news?Are you happy with the way the media, and The Roanoke Times in particular, portrays college students? Is a collection of all of the things you do that we deem to be newsworthy a good representation of who you really are? I mean, college students do all sorts of good things, from charity work to voter registration drives. We write plenty of soft do-gooder features, some about college students. For instance, dozens of Radford University and Virginia Tech students are headed to the Gulf Coast to aid victims of Hurricane Katrina. Kevin Miller wrote about some of those students in a story last month. I'm writing a story for Friday on another group headed down there. But these are short, quick-hit stories slipped into the pages of The Current. Another story I'm writing for Sunday examines the problems Radford students and police are having this year. It's about five times as long as the piece I wrote about the students going to the Gulf Coast. Similarly, we dedicated what seemed like our entire bureau to a story on the supposed craziness that follows a Virginia Tech football game. The reaction of most of the writers and photographers that night was, "Shucks, there were hardly any arrests. No fighting? No fires or huge parties? No story." But people want to read about "Girls Gone Wild" coming to Radford University or a near riot in Blacksburg after a football game, right? That's the type of stuff that interests most reporters. People behaving is not news. If it was I suppose we'd all be living pretty difficult lives. Every Friday a group of reporters at the newspaper's New River bureau go out to lunch to discuss different elements of our craft. Last Friday we discussed a speech given by Washington Post columnist William Raspberry to students at my alma mater, Washington and Lee University, a few years ago. The topic of the speech was "What are journalists for?" Raspberry makes some good points. He contends that good stories can be written in a compelling way and are important to the public. If good is being done to correct a societal ill, the conflict that is needed to make most stories readable can be created between the problem and the problem solvers. That's all well and good and I think there's a place for that type of reporting. But journalists take pride in their role as watchdogs for the public. If we report on how things are going well and everyone is doing right by society we're not really serving that role. What if the relief effort for Hurricane Katrina went incredibly smoothly? What if it was the most successful relief operation in history? It wouldn't have received the same type of press and people would've been interested in that for a day, maybe two. And furthermore, does it take any real skill as a journalist to write about good things that everyone wants to talk to you about? Aren't we trying to get to things that people wouldn't otherwise know about? It's not negative journalism, it's alerting the public. I think everyone agrees that there's a line between the two philosophies. But where does that line lie? And are we currently giving the public a warped view about what college students are all about? |
About this blog
Rhode Island native and Virginia Tech reporter Greg Esposito posts on everyday college life, trends and issues affecting the 35,000-plus students in the New River Valley and beyond.
Tim Thornton, who is old enough to have children attending college, is still taking classes and is still fascinated by colleges, the students who populate them and the bureaucrats who operate them. His reporting beat is Radford University.
West Virginia native Anna Mallory blogs on student life topics at Virginia Tech, Radford University, New River Valley Community College -- and beyond.
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