Welcome to this semester’s Public Editor column.
My job is to critique The Badger Herald’s coverage and investigate reader complaints about the work done at 326 W. Gorham St.
I invite you to use this forum as a way to voice your concerns and questions and help keep the Herald honest. Maybe your letter to the editor wasn’t printed, or the Herald was biased in covering an issue, or you think there is a conspiracy against your knitting club.
Please send me your complaints and I will investigate every claim.
Though edited for style and grammar, Editor-in-Chief Jason Smathers assured me this column won’t go to print until I sign off on every edit. I will hold Smathers to his word.
First thing’s first: The would-be biases of yours truly. As a former news editor, I forged friendships at the Herald newsroom and still stay in touch with a few senior staff members. That should in no way influence my bi-weekly critiques of the newspaper’s coverage. Those who know my work normally regard my feedback as highly critical and sometimes harsh. I intend to continue that as this semester’s Public Editor.
Why should we care?
Reading some Herald news stories occasionally feels like listening to a boring comedian tell a never-ending joke, waiting impatiently for that punch line that never seems to come. That’s how I feel when I read about the Edgewater redevelopment.
“What does this mean and why should I care about this Edgewater debacle?” you may ask. I wish I could give you an answer, as I’m still expecting one myself.
I’ll leave it to City Editor Jake Begun and his staff to explain the issue and why students should (or shouldn’t) be interested.
I will also leave the news desk with a quick lesson: Don’t assume the reader knows too much or too little about an issue. If you mention something, explain it — even if you have covered the issue for the past two years. Chances are, there is someone reading about it for the first time.
The Herald’s news desk commited this mistake recently in the Feb. 2 story about UW senior Neha Suri, who contracted bacterial meningitis and sadly passed away Tuesday.
It may be simple to some, but not everyone knows about the different kinds of meningitis and how deadly one type can be in relation to the other. The article had a little background about the disease, but it was far too buried into the story.
The Feb. 2 story, “UW student in critical condition,” also fails to explain CaringBridge, an online tool where users share health updates. It is not the reader’s job to figure that out.
News Editor Alex Brousseau quickly picked up on the mistake by addressing the issue in her follow-up story on Feb. 3. Brousseau’s sixth graph reads, “Meningitis is a rare and serious bacterial infection that is dangerous due to its lack of specific symptoms.”
‘Atta girl.
Smathers vowed to include background about issues such as the Edgewater redevelopment. “It is complex and … even alders are baffled by some of the things that are going on there,” he said. “That’ll be changed.”
Slow news day no excuse for poor coverage
The Feb. 1 story, “Law school students available for foreclosure consultation,” was hardly worthy of print, let alone the front-page placement it was given. No fault to reporter Alex Skanavis, who was no doubt doing his best with the assignment.
But Herald leadership should have caught a story that reads like a press release for the law school and, frankly, is of little relevance to the UW community — save for the few students who have homes in Dane County.
Smathers said he didn’t like the placement decision and pointed out his staff got an earful.
“Essentially, there’s no explanation other than a slow news day,” he said.
Producing Monday’s issues is normally a challenge for most newspapers, as public offices are closed and sources are slow to return phone calls. But better planning, with scheduled features and photos, could save the Herald from printing a similar story in the future.
“That was not our finest hour,” Smathers said.
Staying on top of what’s important
Campus Editor Carolyn Briggs masterfully adapted her Feb. 2 story about a meeting of the Madison Initiative Oversight Board to an issue of government transparency and whether there was a violation of Wisconsin’s open meetings law.
The Madison Initiative for Undergraduates is an effort by Chancellor Biddy Martin to raise funds for educational needs and financial aid by increasing tuition by $1,000 for Wisconsin residents and $3,000 for non-residents in a four-year span.
Briggs on Monday was kicked out of a meeting of the Initiative’s Oversight Committee due to what University of Wisconsin officials are calling a misunderstanding.
UW spokesman John Lucas said committee members thought the group was advisory and not subject to open meetings law.
A day and a front-page Herald story later, UW officials vowed to keep the meetings open to promote transparency about the Madison Initiative.
An anonymous Feb. 2 comment said, “So, uh, UW broke the law. How about a response, Biddy?”
“I don’t know that anybody needs us to admit that we were wrong here,” Lucas responded in a phone interview. “We agree that Smathers and Carolyn are right, and that the public should have access to those meetings.”
Nicely done.
Kudos
Well-deserved compliments to The Badger Herald design staff. Often unrecognized publicly, underpaid designers on the Herald staff work tough hours and often go above and beyond to make section editors happy on a daily basis.
Design Director Joey Schroeder and his crew have designed creative pages and clearer graphics, culminating in this semester’s redesign of the entire newspaper. Redesigns often warrant much criticism from past Herald editors. This public editor has enjoyed the special pages and is looking forward to what Joey and his staff will come up with next. Keep it up, folks.
Pedro Oliveira Jr. is a former news editor of The Badger Herald. He is currently a news reporter at the Janesville Gazette. Please send complaints and comments on The Badger Herald’s coverage to [email protected]. All complaints will be investigated by the public editor.
