THE 112th Managing Board is off to a strong start. I suspect by now they are mostly stunned by the amount of work and time they will have to put in on a daily basis, and so I was pleased to see such a good job this first week. There were a few more typos than usual, and a few issues felt a little light, but I am confident the new team will soon find its groove.
As mentioned, the 112th is doing well in their first week, but, as always, there are some areas which merit comment. The front page sports photo on Thursday of Travis Watson was great use of a photo. It was a well composed, well developed action shot which drew the eye to the page, with a cutline lead to the sports page. These are very difficult photos to take, because your subject is in motion, prone to unpredictable changes in direction, and the lighting tends to be odd. Becky Sell deserves some praise for her excellent work.
All too often, photos are used as filler to take up space on a page where there is not enough text to fill the space. This leads to the springtime shots of people on the Lawn, the exam period shots of people studying in the library, and the like. While part of photojournalism is to record these everyday aspects of life as well as the news, it is nice to see a traditional sports shot of this quality anchoring page one.
Margaret Chipowsky's Jan. 29 coverage of the change in The Cavalier Daily staff was thorough and professional. The problem with such stories is that it is hard to cover them without feeling like you are making (or reading) a list. So, next time a similar story occurs (Student Council elections, for example), perhaps The Cavalier Daily could actually make a list. A graphic in the form of a chart with the names, school affiliation, year, major and hometown should do the trick. It will convey the same information in a quick, clean style. Then the story can be about unusual or noteworthy aspects of the election, allowing the writer to exercise her talent, and not just her writing muscles. Ms. Chipowsky bore up well under the task, and the piece was very readable, but a change in form may have made it more so. This would likely be an editorial decision, not that of the reporter.
Ben Lisle's column "Angle of Vision" continues to fail to jell stylistically. A previous column on contraception and this week's column on modern politics have just been baffling. Mr. Lisle doesn't seem to know whether he is attempting satire, straight humor, political commentary (in which case the Opinion page would be a better, and more appropriate, venue), or a "thought piece" designed to promote reflection. The result is confused and unfocused writing which, not surprisingly, quickly loses interest. The new editorial staff should work with Mr. Lisle to help him pick a coherent direction. Many writers are not particularly good self-editors, myself included. Mr. Lisle may simply need some guidance.
Also concerning was Brian Cook's Thursday piece on the show "Jackass." He starts with a reasonable premise common to free expression arguments: You don't blame the media for a person's very poor judgment, even if that person is a young kid who is badly injured. Fair enough, and there are reasoned arguments which cut both ways. However, after talking about the warnings that appear in the show, and how they are both broadcast aloud and presented as text, Mr. Cook then admits to never having seen an episode of the show. So, where does Mr. Cook get his information?
Mr. Cook was ethically right to reveal that he has never seen the show. The best possible place to have done that was before he discussed the contents. For example: "While I have never seen the show, it is my understanding that there are warnings..." This alerts readers to the fact that while Mr. Cook doesn't actually know about the elements involved in the show, he would like to speculate about them in the interest of a larger point. It is fair enough for him to do so, by the way, for op/ed pieces have some different rules than straight news reporting. The best practice here, however, would have been to watch an episode of the show to get some first hand knowledge, or to contact MTV for a taped copy of the actual show of interest.
This week in comics, "Permanent Tanooki" got a rerun, following in the footsteps of "Sketchy" the week prior. It is my hope that the new Managing Board will adopt the policies of many syndicating agencies and larger newspapers and request that the cartoonists bank a week's worth of strips which could run at any time. Generating a bank creates a mechanism for dealing with a missed deadline, or a strip that is just too poor quality to run. Both Mr. Bostic's "I've got a fever" strips in this week's "Paradigm Shift" and Mr. Zehmer's "It's my birthday!" strip in "Sketchy" shouldn't have run. A bank serves to help out an artist when they are blocked, or ill. There should always be a week's worth of strips on reserve - for the benefit of artists, editors and readers.
(Brent Garland can be reached at ombuds@virginia.edu.)
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