2008 Woodie Awards
The Journal: Not a venue for PR coverage
Issue date: 11/16/06 Section: Opinion/Editorial
- Page 1 of 1
The Journal has been criticized by departments and campus groups for not covering certain events. The misunderstanding is that the function of a newspaper - student or otherwise - is not to carry out the advertisement of every press release that crosses the news desk. The Journal is a student newspaper that predominately caters to the interests of students. However, the staff tries to include coverage of staff and faculty events as well as off-campus endeavors.
Webster Works Worldwide, for example, has been going on every year for more than 10 years. However, The Journal coverage of the event this past October was criticized as not being extensive enough. Despite the fact that only so many stories can be written about volunteer workers before readers get bored - the organizers of WWW felt as if their event deserved better coverage. The Journal was able to obtain photos after the fact, which were placed on the Web site. That was not good enough, even though WWW has a whole Web page dedicated to it.
What The Journal wants the Webster University community to realize is The Journal is a class. For the most part, the students on staff are engaged in a learning process and don't always get everything just right. We have the prerogative to pick and choose what we feel our readers want to read about. The Journal has covered big events on campus that even the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has ignored.
Also, The Journal has a limited number of dedicated reporters and there usually aren't enough people available on a weekly basis to cover everything that's going on. Furthermore, when one department has 13 speakers come to campus in one semester, we can't possibly be expected to cover every single one of them - nor do we want to.
When it comes down to it, The Journal will only be as cooperative with the Webster community as the Webster community is with The Journal.
Any logical human being should realize a press release given to us on the day of an event will most likely be ignored. An event that has been covered year after year when the staff is starting to run out of interesting angles to cover it will probably be passed up. A department head who constantly says "no comment" to every question asked, will not be repeatedly called and asked for his or her opinion.
We are all supposed to be educated individuals here at Webster University. So, put on your thinking caps and do a little work before you start complaining.
Webster Works Worldwide, for example, has been going on every year for more than 10 years. However, The Journal coverage of the event this past October was criticized as not being extensive enough. Despite the fact that only so many stories can be written about volunteer workers before readers get bored - the organizers of WWW felt as if their event deserved better coverage. The Journal was able to obtain photos after the fact, which were placed on the Web site. That was not good enough, even though WWW has a whole Web page dedicated to it.
What The Journal wants the Webster University community to realize is The Journal is a class. For the most part, the students on staff are engaged in a learning process and don't always get everything just right. We have the prerogative to pick and choose what we feel our readers want to read about. The Journal has covered big events on campus that even the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has ignored.
Also, The Journal has a limited number of dedicated reporters and there usually aren't enough people available on a weekly basis to cover everything that's going on. Furthermore, when one department has 13 speakers come to campus in one semester, we can't possibly be expected to cover every single one of them - nor do we want to.
When it comes down to it, The Journal will only be as cooperative with the Webster community as the Webster community is with The Journal.
Any logical human being should realize a press release given to us on the day of an event will most likely be ignored. An event that has been covered year after year when the staff is starting to run out of interesting angles to cover it will probably be passed up. A department head who constantly says "no comment" to every question asked, will not be repeatedly called and asked for his or her opinion.
We are all supposed to be educated individuals here at Webster University. So, put on your thinking caps and do a little work before you start complaining.
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
Billy
posted 11/16/06 @ 10:24 AM CST
This is the most juvenile story I've ever read in the journal.
Harry
posted 11/21/06 @ 11:46 AM CST
But at least we know that KFC eliminating trans fat does little to break habits and that we learned it from a reporter who doesn't even know where KFC is. (Continued…)
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