College Media Matters

Administrators at the University of Florida and The Independent Florida Alligator continue to battle over the fate of 19 orange news racks that serve as Alligator distribution points on campus.

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The so-called “UF-Alligator rack fight” is stirring a rising tide of news media attention and UF alumni criticism.

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The highly-visible racks have been situated for roughly 30 years at “some of the most heavily-trafficked” spots on the 2,000-acre main campus in Gainesville, Fla.  The university plans to replace them with black modular newsstands of its own, charging the Alligator an annual licensing fee of $100 per stand to place their papers upon them.  The initial targeting of the 19 racks appears to be the first step in a larger push that will most likely lead to the removal of all independent Alligator stands.

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Along with being a money issue, UF officials say the racks don’t “blend in with the historic look of the campus” and are foul-weather concerns.  As a university spokesman tells the Student Press Law Center, “Every time we have a tropical storm or hurricane, we have to get the racks off campus.  The worry was that this was a safety issue . . . where those racks could become dangerous projectiles in a storm.  The modular racks solve that problem.”

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Alligator staffers and their supporters are not buying these style and safety concerns.  They say money and editorial control are the real motivations behind the sudden administrative finagling.

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An online petition on Change.org, titled “Stop Removal of the Alligator’s Newspaper Racks from UF’s Campus,” secured nearly 3,000 signatures.

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The petition’s creator, Alligator staff writer Erin Jester, explains, “The orange racks are the best way for the Alligator to stay independent and be easily accessible to students. By forcing the paper into university-owned racks, UF is able to control the Alligator’s campus distribution, which means the university could eventually force the newspaper off campus. The licensing fee is also an unfair tax on the paper. UF is forcing the Alligator to pay to distribute a free paper that serves the student body.”

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In an editorial, headlined “Save the Racks: The Alligator Needs Your Help,” top Alligator editors similarly contend, “By removing our racks, we believe the UF administration is not acting in the best interest of the students. With UF now controlling our distribution on campus, what happens if we have coverage of the UF administration that they find unfavorable? . . . The uncertainty of this new arrangement will create a chilling effect, hampering our ability to provide students with the most accurate and unbiased coverage.”

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Separately, Miami Herald columnist Fabiola Santiago, a UF alumnus and former Alligator staffer, asks, “What is really behind this attempt to undermine the student newspaper and tax what is essentially a public service? . . . This isn’t a safety issue, and certainly UF’s orange-and-blue colors aren’t suddenly out of fashion in campus decor.  It’s at best a display of insensitivity to the value of a newspaper that shouldn’t be treated like a giveaway shopper.”

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At a college media advisers’ workshop last week in St. Petersburg, Fla., Caley Cook held court.  In a spirited morning session, the print and broadcast journalist, journalism professor, and student newspaper adviser shared a bevy of tips focused on successfully navigating the college media advising minefield.  Much of the advice also applies to students segueing this fall into an editor post.

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Below is a paraphrased breakdown of her words of wisdom– and a fun video at the close involving a quirky crab dance.

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How to Be a Great College Media Adviser

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1) Don’t be a bull in a china shop.  Drop your 18-point plan to change everything on day one, during the first semester or even during the first year.  Practice patience.  Accept that things won’t be in tip-top shape when you arrive and will require a slow shift to achieve the excellence to which you aspire.  To get there, take on one big change at a time.

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2) Learn the larger campus culture and who your outside advocates are.  Specifically ferret out those who are able to approve and provide funding, a needed signature, a push through bureaucracy, and help with recruiting or promotion.

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3) Communicate openly, honestly, often, and IN PERSON with your staff, students, faculty, administrators, the printer, and alumni of the school and your news outlet.  Avoid email whenever possible or at least avoid over-using it.  During her time at Allegheny College– while advising The Allegheny Campus– Cook said she tried to walk across campus at least once a day to talk to someone, shake hands, look them in the eye, get feedback, and accept criticism.

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4) Administrators, repeat after me.  During chats with high-level school officials especially, what you will often have to tell those who simply don’t ‘get’ student media: “Repeat after me: I am not the editor.”

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5) Ease up on the critical high ground.  Don’t make critiques your only interaction with staffers.  Be a sounding board, a mentor, a cheerleader, and, to a limited extent, a friend (or at least a friendly figure).

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6) Go ahead, brag.  Brag about your staff’s work to faculty, administrators, admissions staffers, and prospective students and parents.  The praise will stir greater respect among the powers-that-be and provide students with the chance to receive the best type of compliment– secondhand.

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7) Set standards and a culture of accountability.  You can have a big role in the publication’s big picture and the ways in which students work.  Create a handbook and refer to it enough that it matters in students’ eyes.  For example, while at Allegheny, Cook printed out the student newspaper handbook on day one and had all staffers read and sign it.  If nothing else, the handbook can provide a buffer during difficult moments in which students fight against taking orders from their peers or question someone’s experience or decision-making.

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In a related sense, create a system in which students are held accountable by other students (their editors).  Encourage student leaders to take charge of shaping and updating the rules– making the process student-first and always collaborative.

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8) Let students fail.  Prepare them to fail gracefully.  And embrace failure’s power as a learning tool.  Failure enables students to much more memorably and actively assess and see the flaws in their own work.  It also builds character and subsequently (hopefully) leads them to produce better journalism.  In part, the necessary failures will come when you stop hovering.  You need to be in the newsroom, often, but not all the time, and not standing over students’ shoulders and critiquing every move while they write, design, and edit.

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9) Accept that students listen sporadically.  Toward the end of her talk, Cook shared an anecdote about advice she once offered her student newspaper team, soon after realizing it was going unheeded.  Months later, at a convention, a group of editors raced up to her, telling her they had just received some great advice from a session speaker and they intended to follow it to a tee.  As Cook recalled, she could only smile– it was the same advice she had previously given them.

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10) Develop and nurture a sense of humor.  You will need it.  If not, you will burn out fast.  It will also lead to a greater rapport with students.  Journalists are quirky.  And student journalists are even quirkier because they’re just starting out and figuring out who they are.  As long as it doesn’t overly distract from a deadline push, embrace the quirkiness.

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One example of j-student quirkiness: a short video sent to Cook featuring two of her (now former) student newspaper staffers at Allegheny.  Click.  Watch.  Enjoy.  Don’t try at home.  Or at least don’t livestream while you’re doing it.

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Every once in awhile, I visit alligator.org and simply bask in the awesomeness that is The Independent Florida Alligator.  Among the many things I like about the University of Florida student newspaper is the staff’s uber-direct headlines atop even the looniest of stories– leaving me to literally lean forward, narrow my eyes, and laugh-speak “Wait, what?”

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Exhibit A is featured in the screenshot below.  Exhibit B, much less insane, but still crazy intriguing, is then featured beneath it.

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The Wall Street Journal summer reporting intern recently fired for fabricating quotes apparently has a history of troubled journalism, including while on the staff of The Yale Daily News.  A new IvyGate report reveals a lengthy, cringe-inducing correction note forced to run in 2009 in the YDN to explain the shortcomings of a story written by then-Yale University freshman Liane Membis.

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According to IvyGate’s J.K. Trotter, “The note is brutal.  Membis ‘inaccurately quoted’ a Yale professor (attributing to him statements that do not resemble anything he said, the note makes clear), misdescribed several ‘well-maintained’ greenhouses as ‘rickety,’ and included numerous factual errors in the article.  At 187 words, the article’s correction is the longest the News has published in at least a decade.”

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In the wake of a recent Huffington Post decision to remove an article by Membis from its site due to questionable content, the YDN reopened its investigation into possible journalistic misdeeds by Membis during her YDN stint.

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Here’s the full correction note run after her 2009 story.  I have to agree with Trotter. In its entirety, fairly brutal:

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The story “Supervisors seek to develop, publicize secret garden” contained several errors. First, the photographs accompanying the story did not depict the Marsh Botanic Garden, but rather a School of Forestry & Environmental Studies greenhouse and storage area adjacent to Greeley Memorial Laboratory. Second, the greenhouses should not have been described as “rickety”; the greenhouses are well-maintained, clean and safe to occupants, although administrators would eventually like to replace two aging wood-frame greenhouses. Moreover, the director of the garden, Timothy Nelson, was inaccurately quoted as saying “we want to preserve [the garden’s] history”; more accurately, Nelson said his primary goal in developing the garden is to optimize its use for current education, research and outreach, and as a green space for members of the Yale community to enjoy. The article also incorrectly stated that planned improvements to the garden have been put on hold as a result of the economic downturn; a greenhouse addition is currently under construction at the garden, and Nelson said other projects outlined in a basic planning study are planned for implementation over the next 10 years, pending further planning and approvals.

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Child sex abuse is an epidemic.  The apparent assumption among many is that their own hometown or state is Ground Zero for the most related incidences or worst kinds of related abuse.  The truth: We all live at Ground Zero.

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One in four girls and one in six boys in this country are sexually abused before turning 18.  And as frighteningly high as those numbers are, they are most likely even higher.  According to National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC) communications director Tracy Cox, child sex abuse is the most under-reported crime in the U.S.

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News media must, MUST, report on this abuse responsibly, frequently, and candidly. It is the only way more people will be aware of the true depth of its horrors, its true breadth beyond Sandusky-sized scandals, its actual nature often at odds with cultural stereotypes, and its mind, body and life-altering impact on survivors long after its occurrence or a related court case has adjourned.

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Yet, journalists– even the good ones, the ones genuinely invested in informing the public about the child sex abuse epidemic– are apparently often at a loss to report as thoroughly, regularly, and truthfully as they would like.

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During the opening session of a two-day workshop on covering child sex abuse I participated in last week at The Poynter Institute, Poynter guru and workshop organizer Kelly McBride asked the journo attendees about the obstacles they face while reporting and writing stories involving incidences or issues of child sex abuse.

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The list of their responses quickly compiled on a pair of freestanding boards was long, much longer than I expected.  Below is the gist of that list, in some cases combining and briefly fleshing out what they described as especially subversive or impenetrable stonewalls to journalists’ child sex abuse reporting efforts.

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5 Major Obstacles to Covering Child Sex Abuse

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1) Language Issues.  In many instances, journalists lack the language to truly describe child sex abuse acts.  Due to outside legal edicts or self-imposed ethical standards, the news media regularly rely upon vague euphemisms when outlining the most vile abusive behavior of pedophiles and other perpetrators.

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These euphemisms often obscure the full gore and truth of what survivors endure, leaving readers to guess at what really happened or scroll elsewhere without ever coming to grips with the sheer, insane monstrousness of it all.  (For example, among other acts, news outlets have reported that PSU child sex abuser Jerry Sandusky engaged in “involuntary deviate sexual intercourse” with pre-adolescent boys.  That does not even come close to capturing what he actually did to those children.)

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A related roadblock: concerns centered on what some journalists feel is an almost unavoidable sensationalism if and when full truths are exposed, possibly disgusting some readers and burying others in the depravity at the expense of the human impact.

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The Judicial Language Project at New England Law | Boston maintains a running list of problematic language used during sexual assault cases and a competing list of more appropriate terms and phrases to employ.

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2) Rampant Misunderstandings.  Cultural misperceptions abound regarding child sex abuse, along with shockingly inaccurate stereotypes engendered or exploited by entertainment media and irresponsible news reports.  (One example: the so-called “stranger danger” fear, in which the public believes young people are far more likely to fall victim to an unknown predator, lurking cinematically in the shadows, ready to pounce.  In truth, 90 percent of child sex abuse incidences are perpetrated by individuals with whom the survivors are familiar, such as a family member, teacher, coach or neighbor.)

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These types of stereotypical fallbacks– and the misinformed populace they nurture– make seeking and telling the truth about child sex abuse that much more difficult.  At certain times, they place journalists into combative positions against sources and an audience that simply refuses to believe what they are hearing or reading is true.  At other times, they lead to dismissals about stories’ news value, such as those focused on the long-term suffering and recovery of child abuse survivors who are now adults. (Because, of course, in the movies, the bad guy goes to prison or the good guy gets revenge and the story ends…)

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3) Culture of Silence.  There are endless institutional barriers that limit how much, if any, information is released about even the whiff of a child sex abuse allegation. These barriers are often mounted by schools and organizations worried about PR and financial fallouts (see Penn State and the Peace Corps).  They are also put in place by law enforcement and judicial agencies (including juvenile and tribal court systems)– at times of course for the sake of the survivors and their families, the rights of the accused or the law’s due process.

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There also tends to be a lack of official records documenting sex abuse, a reporting gap journalists struggle to surmount in the face of scant additional evidence beyond an accuser’s account.  To this end, Poynter workshop participants spoke about the need to respect the rights of the accused– ensuring unprovable cases, aggressive prosecutors or political agendas don’t bring down individuals who are actually innocent.

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4) The Survivor’s Side.  Given the nature of the crimes– and their occurrence during a highly-impressionable time in people’s lives– it can be difficult or at times nearly impossible to gather information from survivors.  Survivors may simply not be ready to talk.  They may not yet be fully aware of what happened to them years before.  They may not wish to cause any harm to their perpetrators– often someone they know– even after what the individuals did to them.  They may also fear the ramifications of sharing their stories publicly in any form, named attribution or not.  Or they may still be quite young, literally unable to share– or legally advised against sharing– their own stories with the press.

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The survivor’s side that is then often run in child sex abuse stories consists of police report snippets, testimony transcripts, general statements from survivors’ families or legal teams, shadowed faces on TV or anonymous accounts in written stories– all failing to produce the full human recounting of the crimes that would truly enable the public to connect with the emotional torment that accompanies the physical pain.

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5) Newsroom Realities, News Judgment Mentalities.  For all the reasons cited above and more, child sex abuse stories require extra time, teamwork, and resources to report.  These are all in short supply in the current journalistic landscape, amid layoffs, multi-tasking, instant deadlines, and story quotas.

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There is also apparently a more deeply embedded history of avoidance at many news outlets when it comes to covering child sex abuse.  Concerns exist about an audience distaste for abuse stories or a weariness in response to their repeated appearance on the front page.  Some staffers also find the subject unpalatable as the focus of a day’s work. Other staffers are sex abuse survivors themselves and don’t feel ready or objective enough to report upon related behavior.  And some higher-ups apparently make it clear they deem many sex abuse cases too controversial and lawsuit-prone to be worth the column inches.

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There is also a lingering debate over newsworthiness.  In Occupy Wall Street terms, the high-profile Sandusky scandal is the 1 percent.  An overwhelmingly large majority of child sex abuse cases remains private, between individuals, with emotional and physical scars often unnoticed by the public and possibly not felt by the survivor for years. Their impact can be much more difficult to pin down and sell in a story pitch, especially compared to more mainstream crimes like a robbery or shooting (sporting easily-verifiable consequences such as missing money or spilled blood) or public impact events like a government funding tie-up or major road construction.

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Bottom line: Child sex abuse encompasses a set of incredibly depraved, complex, and difficult-to-ferret-out criminal behaviors whose barbarism often turns the stomachs of reporters searching for assignments and readers scanning the news.  But the stories still need to be told.  One web hub created by Poynter to help you along the way: Resources for Covering Sexual Abuse of Children.

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Single female students, breathe easy.  University of Georgia sophomore Amber Estes has a six-point plan centered on helping you land a rich, handsome, respectful husband by the time you leave school.

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In a column for The Red & Black late last week, headlined “How to Find That Perfect Husband in College,“ Estes lays out a bevy of tips aimed at helping undergraduate women “find the right brilliant babe to father their children and replenish their bank accounts.”

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Her advice involves knowing where to stake out the right type of guy, how to act early in the dating process, and how to get a potential beau’s attention and earn their affection when they snoop you out online.  A sampling:

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Go where the money is.  ”Spend your free time casually moseying around the law school. . . . This is where you’ll find the most ambitious guys, which directly correlates to how well they’ll be able to provide for you and your future mini Mr. Perfects.”

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Avoid being too sexual early on.  ”A man won’t get down on one knee for a woman who is overly willing to get down on both of hers.”

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For online pics, it’s not the primping, but who you pose with that counts.  ”[M]ake sure you take pictures with your pretty friends, but not ones that are prettier than you. That way the boys know you don’t hang around with uggos, but it’s also crystal clear that you’re the queen of the pack.”

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The piece has gone viral, roping in more than 135 comments (commenting now disabled), 500 tweets, 4,000 Facebook likes, and outside media attention including an ABC News blog mention and a Business Insider write-up.

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Is it genuine?  That question has driven much of the discussion surrounding its almost ludicrously old-fashioned call to women to “go get that MRS degree.”

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My Take: It must be satire.  The biggest clue, besides its general over-the-top slant, is an interactive poll right next to the column online asking readers if they think it’s satire. I don’t see any reason that would be run if it was just a regular piece of journalism.  You’d then be asking people to vote about whether something a staff member wrote is so crazy that it doesn’t seem real.  Not exactly confidence-inspiring for the staffer. :)

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Either way, the perfect future envisioned by Estes certainly seems lovely– “sipping sweet tea by the pool at the country club while some babysitter watches after Junior and Georgia Ann.”

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