“The newspaper brought them together, and the newspaper is still necessary to keep them united.”
- Alexander de Tocqueville, The American Democracy
While it is true that de Tocqueville was commenting here on the necessity of newspapers (and today I would argue, media in general) in building and maintaining democracy in America, I believe it can also be applied to any small microcosm of that society, even a privately owned college campus, particularly one that places such a strong emphasis on building a community.
The most fundamental question here to be asked is: What does a newspaper do? For the primary function, one needs only to look as far as the word “newspaper.” The most obvious part here is “paper,” the medium it’s printed on. However, “news” seems to be a little bit more difficult to define.
Generally, “news” encompasses the major events happening in a locale, nation, or world. In many papers these events get divided into a few sections—arts/entertainment, sports, and, of course, hard core news. What qualifies a full story for any of these sections, though? A few facts? Perhaps a quote? What is OK here?
Ideally, a hard core news story has as much information as can fit. Quotes from various parties involved are necessary. All sides of a story should be presented.
Unfortunately, in a more real world, it sometimes proves to be quite difficult to represent all sides in a story. There are times when all of the information is not available for one reason or another.
The challenges of representing all sides of a story are very profoundly felt here on The Poly. To begin with, as members of a student-run newspaper, any reporter has an obligation to first do well in his classes. People don’t pay $30,000 a year simply to fail out of their classes, even if they are members of The Poly.
What this means, however, is that many of the reporters are working on very tight schedules. They cannot devote 50 hours a week to tracking down vital pieces of their stories. Often stories have to be held for this reason.
While it is quite daunting to have to track down a piece of information, especially on a tight schedule, it can be quite rewarding when that last piece of information is found that can round out a story. Being able to provide the public with an accurate, well-rounded story can be quite satisfying. It’s even better if a story can make the readers think about their world. And when those readers then start getting involved, either by sending in their letters to discuss their thoughts on a topic or actually getting involved in a situation, the true purpose of the paper is fully being expressed.
Sadly, this lofty ideal is not always reached. The system is flawed in many ways, much of it falling on the various human aspects that lay within the system. This includes parts that go beyond the reporter or editors of the paper.
Often times, it isn’t possible to get enough information. For one reason or another someone was unavailable for comment, or refused to comment, or made some vaguely abstract comment that really said nothing at all. Alternatively, perhaps a document wasn’t available. Or no one gave us a lead until too late. There are a lot of times when we hear about stories like these. Many of the stories that fall into this category don’t even reach the pages of the paper.
There are other times when all of the needed information doesn’t fall into place until well after something has occurred. Perhaps no one was willing to make a statement until that point. Or maybe we read about it in another paper and decided to take a look at it. Unfortunately, by this point, the real challenge is in deciding whether to still run the story or to leave it with the rest of the dinosaurs that people no longer care to look at.
It is very frustrating to even have to deal with these issues, especially in an environment that claims to be open about what is going on. It is true that everyone is welcome to ask whatever question they please. However, I would not guarantee that they would get an answer that is even remotely satisfying. Many of the issues that truly matter today—the current issues that is—are things that are in the planning phases. Often we hear whispers of what may be happening, but nothing definite and there usually are three or four different versions of the same tale.
In all honesty, this kind of environment is not one in which the various parts are united. No one knows what is going on completely, although there are rumors of a lot of change. With this kind of change, particularly with the reach that it will have, it is important to have everyone involved from the beginning, not just a handful of students or a lot administrators trying to figure out what’s best for everyone.
An important variable in this equation is to not hide the facts about what is going on around campus. As an example, there have been times throughout this past semester when reporters from The Poly have come back from interviews with different administrators with completely different stories on the same topic. This level of stonewalling makes it impossible to actually get information out to the campus community and only hurts the credibility of the administration as a whole.
And how, then, is anyone supposed to trust the changes on the horizon?
