The Big Time

This was a beautiful cover and a nice looking issue.

You included some excellent stories in this issue:

• Terrific sourcing on the Arcata Endeavor story. You went beyond quoting John Shelter as the rest of the press tends to do. You went from the Endeavor to Machi and then questioned the answers Machi gave you by going to St. Albans. Nice job.
• Nice story on Big Time. It focused in advance on a story that shows what makes Humboldt State unique, it focuses on students, who are your core readership, and it focuses on a topic important to an often marginalized community. Plus it was a good read.
• Well-organized, informative story on Jason Robo.
  

But you missed some important stories.

A Humboldt State student was arrested for sexual assault in the dorms, just one week before Take Back the Night. Not only did you miss the arrest, you missed previewing Take Back the Night, which means you missed the opportunity to readdress past assaults on campus that the police have done little about.


Don't slp on speling

The copy is much cleaner in terms of grammar than it was at the start of the term (yay!) but now you are starting to slip on spelling:

• Decend on the cover was a pity
• Gust columnnist for Tom Jones was hysterical

Show, don't tell.

Circuses are visual so show us a circus. To cover something as a preview, get the artists in the story to demonstrate for you what they will perform. You need to show readers what they can expect to see.

The same went for the story on the athletic teams raising money for Make-A-Wish. How do you show readers a "fun-filled event"? By showing them women basketball players in wigs. What did those wigs looked like. What kinds of wigs? Show me men in basketball shorts and suit shirts and ties.

Show me the Marching Lumberjacks in free-spirited attire. What does that mean? I can't see free-spirited attire.

Show me the third-inning threat and the diving catch over the fence in left field that shut it down.

Show me two people poking each other with dangerously pointy sticks in a sport they call fencing.

Kill the term when asked...

• ...when asked how difficult it was to referee for players he knew, Cox said...
• ...when asked about the weekend as a whole, senior pitcher Lizzy Prescott said...
• ...when asked about the games next weekend, Manata said...
  

Don't presume the reader knows

You start off the German elimination story (great headline!!) with THE degree elimination but the reader doesn't know what you are talking about.
Then you start the next paragraph with the current state is THE recommendation from THE Provost Council to discontinuethe German major.

Don't bury your ledes.

On UC Santa Cruz slugs 'Jacks:

• I found the lede in the fourth paragraph:

If a pitcher doesn't keep his fastballs down and lets breaking balls hang in the zone, it makes hitting a lot easier for the other team. That's what the 'Jacks discovered last weekend.

On the Make-A-Wish story

• The lede was either the women wearing wigs in the 10th paragraph or how difficult it is for former running back Marcus Cox to blow the whistle on players he knows in the 14th graph.

Move your stories forward

With sports, ask about and emphasize the future stories over the stories the reader missed. Okay so the Slugs crushed the 'Jacks. What's Stanford like? Who won/lost the last time the two teams played? What's UC San Diego like? What can the reader expect to see?

What is it about noun-pronoun agreement that you can't seem to get? A fencing club is an it, not a they.

Bring your stories to life!

Some of the stories read as if you yawned while reporting and writing them. Figure out what is interesting about fencing. Don't just cover an event to cover it.

What's unusual, strange, wierd? What makes it special? All stories are about people. If you find the activity dull, find out more about the people involved. They are likely interesting people. It is your job to bring a story to life.


Finally, once again Forum rocked!