COLUMN: Most people don’t understand journalism
This semester has certainly been a learning experience. I like to joke with people that The Utah Statesman has managed, at some point or another, to offend nearly every group on campus with a well-intentioned photo, miswritten headline or strongly worded opinion column.
While I agree some of the choices we’ve made were not the best, I still stand by them. A student newspaper is a place for us to learn, after all. If I chose to stay inside everyone’s comfort zone when making editorial decisions, what good would I be doing? We could go along living shallow lives with no flavor, no color, no facing inward to ask deep questions about our beliefs, but we would not be mature adults.
On that note, I also hope the student newspaper is a place where ordinary people can learn about journalism. After working on various levels of this business for seven years, there are a few things I’ve learned people just don’t understand about journalism.
1- Writers do not write headlines. I repeat: Writers do not write headlines. My poor writers are the victims of trollish emails written by people who see red whenever they read a headline – or caption – they don’t agree with. These people, who seem very intelligent and friendly in real life, type up very mean-spirited and degrading essays to justify their anger, find the writer’s email at the bottom of the article – if they actually read the entire article at all – and jam a finger full of self-righteous judgement on the send button before realizing the writer probably had no say in the matter at all.
Guess what? My writers forward those emails on to me, their editor. I do a thorough Internet search for you, and believe me when I say I am very good at Internet stalking. Your email, which you assumed would be privately read while the writer is in tears, gets read by at least two other people and probably a group of gape-jawed roommates – not to mention the entire editorial board, our publisher, a few professors and parents.
If people have a problem with the headline, the caption or the placement of an article, they can come talk to the editorial staff. Better yet, I invite them to man-up and write a letter to the editor so the public can read their displeasure and decide whether to agree or not.
2- Journalists are human. Yes, we have beating hearts. Yes, we have families and values. Yes, we make mistakes. We do our best to be perfect, but for crying out loud, find your humanity when you criticize us. Criticism makes us better, but outright hostility just makes us mad and makes you look worse than we did in the first place.
3- Journalists do not have a hidden agenda to ruin someone’s life. Tabloid writers, sure. News pundits, perhaps. But not your everyday journalist. Journalists who work for major news outlets are just trying to inform people. We do not have time or get paid enough to sit around thinking to ourselves, “Hmm, whose life can I go about ruining today?”
4- If you intend to run for a public office or participate in any clubs or organizations that take student funds, expect to be quoted or have your picture taken. Nothing makes journalists more annoyed when someone begs not to be quoted or pictured. You asked to be put in the limelight when you put yourself there. Get over yourself.
5- The opinion pages of a newspaper are just that – opinions. They are not called “articles,” either. I may be a little nitpicky about this, but I find it frustrating when people tell me they loved or hated the “article” we published in the opinion section. An article in a newspaper reports the news, not the flat-out opinions of the writer.
6- We are not your public relati
ons outlet. I know the news coverage gets shallow sometimes, but we are not obligated to run every single press release that gets sent to us. Some things are not as newsworthy as others. If you want to be sure your event gets advertised, buy advertising space in the newspaper or submit it to our online calendar: http://www.usustatesman.com/calendar.
Also, just because we are students does not mean we cannot question what is going on at the university.
Several years ago, I was reporting a story for The Utah Statesman about changes happening to a section of the university where workers were getting laid off because of an organizational change. I scheduled an interview with the director, who sat me down in a conference room for 45 minutes and rambled on and on about how great these organizational changes were going to be, but sidestepped all my questions about why the workers were going to be laid off.
In the end, he had the gall to try to rope me into doing PR for them by saying they would buy full-page ad space once a month in The Statesman where I could write positive articles about the research they were doing. I politely declined and went home to write my story about how the department was laying off people and would not specify why their jobs were no longer important.
You can argue whether the editorial staff at The Utah Statesman is doing their job correctly, but do not tell us to do your job for you. If you want people to know about what your organization is doing, or if you have an issue you would like to see covered in more depth, then head over to TSC 311. Stop being shy, and don’t hide behind your email address.
– Lis Stewart is a senior studying journalism and political science. She enjoys watching Dr. Who, correcting other people’s grammar and eats way too much chocolate. She can be reached at la.stewart65@gmail.com, or follow her on Twitter: @CarpetComm.