The last decade has seen a fundamental shift in the way young Americans consume news. But plenty of members of the college-age generation no longer read newspapers or magazines as distinct products; instead, they read articles they encounter online at random, often without even a thought about who published the story. It’s a troubling change — it leads to a very passive, uninformed reader who thinks news simply appears as if by magic, not to mention the ill effects of such habits on newspapers’ chances of survival. But college newspapers stand as perhaps the strongest candidates to buck that trend.
Most colleges, like U.Va., don’t have more than one daily newspaper. So while weeklies, magazines or other campus news outlets offer some competition, it’s clear which publication serves as the campus’ paper of record. At U.Va., that honor and responsibility falls to The Cavalier Daily.
When students and faculty look to find University news, then, there’s really one main place to go. Unless one wants to remain ignorant about University happenings, the daily paper is essential reading — and it’s all delivered in one package, twice weekly, or online on one site. With a near monopoly, then, a university daily may often end up as the only regular news source for some students.
The question for a college newspaper to address, then, is what news to run, considering that what it runs might be all some readers are sure to see. Some college newspapers pick up stories from wires like the Associated Press so readers who never touch another newspaper will at least know something about national and international stories. The Cavalier Daily, with its limited print edition, understandably does not.
This week, The Cavalier Daily has run a few stories that go beyond the immediate purview of life on Grounds and in Charlottesville. It ran one story about Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s take on Syrian refugees and another about Sen. Tim Kaine’s declaration that Congress should declare war on ISIS.
Both are surely stories Cavalier Daily readers should know about. But The Cavalier Daily, without sending reporters to Washington or Richmond, is ill-equipped to compete well with larger news outlets. That doesn’t mean the paper shouldn’t try; perhaps some readers will benefit from having read those stories, and covering state and national politics is good training for reporters, who are, after all, also students.
But The Cavalier Daily should also weigh those stories against some of the deeper coverage possible closer to home. The paper also ran a story this week about a recent University survey on sexual assault on Grounds; the piece went into some depth and focused on whether the study’s findings were statistically significant and how they will be used. That’s important work, too, of a very different stripe from coverage of the state’s highest elected officials.
Perhaps the greatest depth The Cavalier Daily offers is in its sports coverage, which often graces the tabloid print edition’s front page and features analysis, opinion and reports on games. Of course, sports stories grip readers uniquely and lend themselves to some excellent reporting and writing. The Cavalier Daily, like all papers, could always run more profiles and other stories that get beyond the scores and into the lives of the characters who shape games and teams.
None of these are bad ways to invest reporters’ attention, and each serves a distinct purpose in providing readers with the best, most informative and most gripping coverage. The Cavalier Daily faces a balancing act in deciding whether to focus on deeper dives into prominent University issues, robust sports coverage, more cursory treatment of state and national stories or any number of other options. And part of that decision surely ought to take into account what readers need and want. So, readers: What do you want to read? What types of stories should The Cavalier Daily prioritize?
Julia Fisher is the Public Editor for The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at publiceditor@cavalierdaily.com or on Twitter at @CDPublicEditor.
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