Newspaper Death Throes, Student Edition

[dirtybird]

The Indiana Hoosiers are in the NCAA Tournament. The Indiana Daily Student has had three reporters (two beat jockeys and a columnist) cover the team all year, but could only afford to send two people (including, inexplicably, a photog).

What's inexplicable about sending a photog? Don't they need art?

Writers who have been with team all year provide insight. What would the student photog get that AP wouldn't?

Does the IDS use AP. I know some student papers don't, budgets and all.

 

[playthrough]

I've been in this situation at the IDS, a bazillion years ago -- my junior year, Indiana's soccer team went to the NCAA title game. Me and another guy were the beat writers and had traveled the midwest all season following them. Forget where the title game was but it was far enough that rational people would fly, and we wanted plane tickets. Paper said it didn't have the money but we could drive. We refused, and another guy volunteered to drive and cover it, so off he went. Still irks me and my friend a bit, and I still bark at the old EIC about it once in a blue moon (I wake up next to her every morning).

At the time, wow, we were pissed. But the thought of hanging out a donation box or whatever would never have occurred to us, nor would we have taken outside money (yeah, I know it's easy to say that now, but I'm confident). I was aghast at this story when I first saw it, then relieved when that editor said they wouldn't take the donations.

Every part of the student newspaper experience should mirror real-world situations, and that includes the editors budgeting for trips and worst-case scenarios like the NCAAs on the west coast. If it doesn't work out, well, welcome to the working world.

 

[Appgrad05]

Just saying: the IDS would have a better high ground to stand on if it didn't tell the two kids that they could pay their own way if they wanted to go. If you take a stand that you won't accept any coverage you cannot pay for, that's great. But to say college kids can dole out a grand of their (parents) cash and that's cool, you have trouble justifying what happened here.

 

[playthrough]

Totally agree there, App. Talk about slippery slopes. Just let the well-heeled kids from the suburbs cover everything, then.

 

[RickStain]

What about that life lesson of sticking by your ethics? If I'm the IDS reporter caught in this situation, I would refuse to go. Because, in effect, you're selling yourself to go on an assignment the paper can't otherwise afford.

And if that reporter acquiesces and/or condones a donation to go cover the tournament in this manner? I don't want any part of hiring anyone who thinks it's OK to sell out their ethics to a well-intended, but wrong-headed bidder.

Aren't most independent student papers non-profits that accept donations all the time?

What it it wasn't to go on one trip, but instead to buy cameras and computers? Would that be unethical?

I guess I need the ethics quandary spelled out. Paper wants to cover something, uses the available resources (alumni base) to attempt to do it. The money only allows them to do something they already planned on doing.

And if we were to make a stink about that, do we also complain about the ethics of student newspapers that (gasp!) take money from the very school administrations they have to cover?

The problem is that at any given time, there are probably hundreds of things the newspaper would like to cover but doesn't have the resources to do so.

So if you start covering the things that draw donation, money is now directly driving your coverage.

 

[JimmyHoward33]

The Indiana Hoosiers are in the NCAA Tournament. The Indiana Daily Student has had three reporters (two beat jockeys and a columnist) cover the team all year, but could only afford to send two people (including, inexplicably, a photog).

What's inexplicable about sending a photog? Don't they need art?

Writers who have been with team all year provide insight. What would the student photog get that AP wouldn't?

We didn't have AP art at my student paper and we always sent a photog on travel events. Yeah it would have been nice to have two reporters instead but that's not how it works.

Budgets are real. Not every writer that does NFL home games goes to the Super Bowl. Is it fair? No. But that's life.

Far as paying their own way there have been plenty of discussions about employed writers paying their own way, sleeping at friends houses to save the paper the hotel fee, etc. Most of us balk at it because its enabling the bean counters, but there's always someone zealous enough to want to be seen at the big event. But its a common question.

Donations to cover travel is much less common.

 

[dirtybird]

What about that life lesson of sticking by your ethics? If I'm the IDS reporter caught in this situation, I would refuse to go. Because, in effect, you're selling yourself to go on an assignment the paper can't otherwise afford.

And if that reporter acquiesces and/or condones a donation to go cover the tournament in this manner? I don't want any part of hiring anyone who thinks it's OK to sell out their ethics to a well-intended, but wrong-headed bidder.

Aren't most independent student papers non-profits that accept donations all the time?

What it it wasn't to go on one trip, but instead to buy cameras and computers? Would that be unethical?

I guess I need the ethics quandary spelled out. Paper wants to cover something, uses the available resources (alumni base) to attempt to do it. The money only allows them to do something they already planned on doing.

And if we were to make a stink about that, do we also complain about the ethics of student newspapers that (gasp!) take money from the very school administrations they have to cover?

The problem is that at any given time, there are probably hundreds of things the newspaper would like to cover but doesn't have the resources to do so.

So if you start covering the things that draw donation, money is now directly driving your coverage.

That seems like an stretch at best. They're not covering something that draw donations, they're getting donations to cover something the were aiming to cover anyway.

It also implies that money has no role in driving real-world coverage, which seems asinine. I cover HS football more than golf, mostly becuase of interest, which has a direct correlation to papers sold and money.

 

[Bubbler]

Just saying: the IDS would have a better high ground to stand on if it didn't tell the two kids that they could pay their own way if they wanted to go. If you take a stand that you won't accept any coverage you cannot pay for, that's great. But to say college kids can dole out a grand of their (parents) cash and that's cool, you have trouble justifying what happened here.

Absolutely true.

 

[Piotr Rasputin]

Romenesko is paying attention.

http://jimromenesko.com/2012/03/14/ids-returns-money-raised-for-staffers-to-attend-ncaa-tourney/#more-11097

This just got real.

 

[Chris_Korman]

As somebody who owes everything to his college paper, and who has known so many IDS writers well, I realized how important it was for those writers to get a chance to travel to Portland. When I saw the donation drive, I thought nothing of it and chipped in.

But I see where the editor is coming from. The issue, to me, is that there could be the appearance of a conflict of interest. People who clearly are fans of the Indiana basketball team gave money, and many of them listed their names on a public web site. That's a much more direct connection than advertising. Yes, advertisers pay for the paper to exist -- and IU athletics itself is an important advertiser for the newspapers in Bloomington -- but that's a relationship built with the business departments of those newspapers. Advertiser X isn't calling Joe Reporter to say, "Hey, I paid for that cheeseburger you just ate so write nice about my favorite player." And knowing many of the people who donated, I know that they wouldn't do anything of the sort, either. It's just that the paper, by taking the money, would give skeptical readers a reason to have doubts about the sanctity of the coverage.

If student newspapers are going to continue to be the robust operations they were even 10 years ago, they'll probably need to rely on donations. But those donations should be dumped into a general fund and dispersed by the editor as he or she sees fit.

 

[Stitch]

Ethics are good to have, but most of the time, it's a term used by publishers and editors to screw the rank-and-file while they have low ethical standards as to their own conduct.

 

[JimmyHoward33]

Interestingly, Boston University's Daily Free Press does not have the same reservations as the Indiana folks: http://t.co/zxY3EwNI