Critique of the March 5 Issue: Recycle Mania

At the critique session in class...

Students said they liked:

1. The fact boxes
2. The story about lunch trucks
3. The bold color on the cover
4. The sports section
5. The story about the ban on military recruitment

Some students said they didn't like:

1. The choice of the recycling story over the story about the 'Jacks CCMA championship win.
2. The layout of the Forum section is still too gray.
   
3. The story on the reopening of the Women' Resource Center overlooked how hard the people who are behind it had to work to get it reopened and how the university fails to support it or other worthy organizations on campus.
4. That the editorial didn't go far enough.
   

I want to address the cover, the editorial and the Forum section in more depth.

1. What goes on the cover?

From the reader's perspective this is an easy question to answer: The most important story in the issue.

From a practical standpoint however, there are a number of factors that determine the cover:

• The cover must be designed in advance. That means that the story needs to be in or the editors need to be darn sure it will come in early enough to get in the paper. What does that mean? That the newer the reporter covering the story, the less likely something will happen, the less determined the outcome of an event, or the less reliable the reporter covering the story, then the less likely the story will make the cover if the editors don't have it in hand early.
• Available art: Why do dog stories and stories about children make it onto newspaper front pages? Partly great art possibilities. A story that is difficult to illustrate or that is difficult to photograph will be less likely to make it onto a cover.

But let's say a story meets those two criteria. Then a paper should put its most important, most contentious story with the most reader interest on the cover.
Let's forget art possibilities for a second. What stories in this issue were cover-worthy? Arguably the championship season for the 'Jacks regardless of what could happen after deadline Tuesday. But the elephant in the issue was the editorial addressing a campuswide email from the university president about a reported incident of racism off-campus.

That brings up the second passionate argument made at the the beginning of the Lumberjack class.

2. Did the editorial go far enough?

I think that question misses the real issue, which is that the Lumberjack addressed the email in an editorial without reporting the story in the first place. The president sent out the email Friday, which left all weekend to report the story, get facts from the Arcata and/or university police, and get man-on-street reactions from students, faculty and members of the community. The Lumberjack should have leapt on this issue, particularly since the campus was scheduled to hold a summit on social justice the next week and that's the Diversity Conference under another name. Failure to do this reflects a number of possibilities: Laziness, inexperience, insensitivity, incompetence or a problem in measuring and understanding news value.

Meanwhile the editorial wasn't the only problem with the Forum pages. I couldn't understand why you said you didn't have enough space to run all the submissions that came in but you had space for yet another Tom Jones rant and another rant by Jason Robo, two people who you have given more than enough space to in past issues. You need to prioritize your space:

1. Is the person a new/fresh voice? You want to give voice to the voiceless, not a soapbox to someone who already has one.
2. Is the person someone your readers need to hear from? If President Richmond sends the LJ a letter you probably want to run it.
3. Is the issue the person addresses an issue the Lumberjack hasn't addressed or that readers need addressed?

I think you need to come up with a policy and put it down in writing to limit guest submissions to three columns per term. The entire student body subsidizes the printing of the Lumberjack, so you want to encourage as as many people the opportunity to express themselves in it.

Note too, that it is the Forum editor's responsibility to work with column writers and those who submit letters and help them improve the clarity of their submissions. The editor should fact-check columns and, with the writer's consent, fix grammatical errors and make sure than the writer understands when something in the column could be taken as offensive. If there are factual errors that the editor finds but that the writer refuses to correct, the editor should include an editor's note. See this column by the editor of the New York Times Op-Ed pages on how that paper handles guest op-ed columns and letters to the editor.

What else?

Good stories in this issue included the one about military recruitment, the story about the lunch trucks, although it begged for a map -- still great page design. I loved the men's basketball story. Terrific story on Devin Peal. The writer even managed to track down Peal's former summer league basketball coach. But the headline was a yawner. So...

You need to get more creative with headlines.

While there were several good ones:

• Let's get ready to recycle
• Not in Our Town
• Arcata says "See Ya" to recruiters
  

The rest were either dull:

• Women's Resource Center celebrates grand reopening
• Art of the centuries: exhibit looks at mythical meanings and social interpretations
• Basketball says goodbye to skillful leader
• Last home game for two women's basketball players
• Academic Senate submits concerns to Richmond
  

Or they didn't tell me what the story was about:

• Settin' the record straight

Don't promise your reader what you can't deliver

The story on recycling promises SEXY and MANIC and the story doesn't deliver on the promise. It was a good try at making a story about garbage interesting. Remember...

Ask: What is my story about?

On one level its about recycling and not using, on another level it is about a competition. And competition means conflict. So here you have a story about conflict over garbage. And you have Stanford University and competition over garbage.

It's hard for a school like Humboldt to beat Stanford University at anything. But this month students here will try. There's a nationwide contest for waste minimization this month and those anal Stanford students seem to produce less trash than any other school in the country.
But some HSU students believe that with a little determination some ugly looks at people carrying coffee in paper cups, HSU can leave Stanford in the garbage heap.

And remember that your story is about PEOPLE not objects.

This isn't a story about garbage it is a story about PEOPLE who will try to avoid throwing things out.

Passive phrasing also dulled this story:

...bringing sexy back to reducing
...will continue to compete... ...bringing plastics, compost bins... ...will continue to compete in... The Campus Recycling Program is the driving force behind... The competition is divided into... Plastics can travel...
...paper is the biggest product that people are throwing away...

Use Active Verbs!

...make recycling sexy
...will compete to...

In the lede, the WHAT is more important than the WHEN or WHO, unless the WHO is Arnold and the WHEN is tomorrow. While the military recruiter story was interesting and informative, the lede starts with the past and a group of unnamed people.

In early February, a group of local parents, teachers, students and counter-recruting activists drew up plans for an ordinance that would...

That's 22 words that don't yet tell readers what the story is about and that don't hook them in.

Ask yourself:

1. What is this story about? It is about a law? No.
   
2. Who is this story about? Is it about a bunch of people trying to pass a law? No.
   

It is about whether military recruiters will be able to prey on youth in Arcata. So that is your lede.

You had the same problem with the Art of the Centuries story. First you needed to show more. Also what is the story about?

1. Is it about a man who is putting on an exhibit?
2. Is it about an HSU alum?

No. It is about a crazy artist who spent six years trying to find utterly ordinary stuff and considers all of it art for very interesting reasons. So I'd lede with the stick, which according to the photo, looks like a perfect ordinary stick you could find on any beach. But Soderstrom had to travel the world for it, and to him it represents all kinds of things. Art stories tend to be inherently interesting because most artists are inherently crazy so you want to bring out that crazy genius in the artist in the story. Zero in on genius and wierdness and insanity, don't ignore it.

You had the same problem with the story about the new Rofes Resource Center. What's this story about? A new center? Eric Rofes? Or an attempt to keep Rofes' work alive. Here's your lede:

Until his death in June 2006, Eric Rofes was a firm believer in coalition building. Now there's a building on campus dedicated to keeping his dreams alive.

Think about your sourcing

Don't use sources in your stories who don't belong in your stories. And don't let sources bully you into doing stories or bully themselves into your stories. Before spending significant amounts of time and energy with sources vet them. Is the source:

• Someone most affected by the problem?
• Actually responsible for the problem?
• Someone with actual expertise to explain the problem?
• Someone with power to correct the problem?

And when someone suggests a story ask yourself:

1. Is this problem new?
2. Is this problem important?
3. Has the LJ or some other publication already covered the problem?
4. Can I add something new that the reader needs or wants?

Those were my thoughts going into the Academic Senate story until I got to President Richmond. Then I said, "Oh!, Richmond granted the Lumberjack an interview. That is new and different." But I didn't get that until after a 46 word lede about a Bill of Particulars that the Lumberjack has already written about twice.

What's this story about? Richmond has until May 11 to answer the faculty's complaints but he decided to sit down with the Lumberjack first. But after devoting one very long graph to him, you spend eight more graphs with Lou Ann Wieand before getting back to Richmond. You devoted two previous very long articles to the faculty complaints, you needed to focus this story around Richmond's response, particularly since it was an exclusive interview with the Lumberjack. But good job on getting that interview.

The Delete key is your friend.

Use it often. Several stories in this issue were too long for their content. KILL unnecessary graphs. On second draft ask yourself for each graph:

1. Does it add new information to the story?
2. Does it show anything different?
3. If I delete it will it make any difference to the story?

Try deleting and repasting graphs with the cut and paste shortcut (Control X/V on a PC, Apple X/V on a Mac) and see what difference it makes to the story.t's like jumping into a pool. While you will find you need some nerve to do it, once you do it makes you feel better.

Love the photos.

While you needed people in the recycling story (it is a story about a competition not garbage), the sports photos were killer and I liked the photo of the art stick.

Finally:

I love the redesign of the Contents page. And I love how some of you are responding to my critique by commenting on this blog.