How should a reporter cover this typical art school class at SAIC (School of the Ape Institute of Chicago)? What issues are raised by the Simian Gaze? Grandville, Les Métamorphoses du jour (1828-1829).

[These notes are intended for student journalists and writers at The School of the Art Institute. Limited usefulness elsewhere.]

What content would make F Newsmagazine important to SAIC students? What would make students feel they had to read F Newsmagazine? What would make them talk about it, comment on articles on the website?

Editors need answers to such questions.  Very likely few articles in any issue could do these things, but if none do, the newspaper risks irrelevance to its community. This article begins with a checklist and then suggests ways to approach these questions.

One thing to remember — our readers are not going to go to a student newspaper first to read about the arts, entertainment, politics, no matter how good our writers are. But the student newspaper of The School of the Art Institute can offer some things no mainstream publication can: news and commentary about the school, the people and experience of a fascinating and important art institution, and coverage of the local art scene. My non-editor editorial advice: Put the voices of the students, faculty and staff into every section, not only in coverage of school news and issues. Example: A pop culture story can also include quotes from students and faculty, some of who will have expertise or interesting perspectives on the subject.

A checklist for editors

If you’re editing an article for the school section, check off some of the traditional criteria for news value (and look at the newswriting checklist in “A brief guide to newswriting.”)

• Relevance: Would student readers care?
• Analysis: What is the real story?
• Substance: Where’s the beef?
• Sourcing: Are the sources appropriate and reliable?
• Support: Does the article make claims it doesn’t support?
• Objectivity, Fairness and bias: Fact check and gauge credibility.

Relevance:

How do you know if the story will interest your readers? School newspapers have an advantage — you can find readers to ask just by walking out your classroom door. Listen to your readers. Editors and reporters need to value all their contacts and talk to them.

Is the subject something students talk about or hear about? Does it answer a question students are asking? Does the article show how students are affected? Does it describe student work and play, lifestyle, feelings, opinions?

Analysis

What is the real story? Sometimes a reporter misses the real significance of the story, or mentions it in passing (a form of “burying the lead”).

Example: A story in F Newsmagazine on Obamacare (Affordable Care Act) describes the health insurance reforms but doesn’t focus on its particular impact on artists — the ACA allows artists to choose to work part-time and on jobs that allow them time to make art. Or, an article reporting that the school has given pay increases to part-time faculty doesn’t mention that there is a union-drive at the school. (These mistakes are fictitious; our reporters nailed those stories.)

Substance

Where’s the beef? Does the article make the story out to be more important than it really is? If the story is “controversial,” is there actually a controversy? Remember that writers, especially inexperienced writers, can easily persuade themselves that what they have learned is more important than it really is. Especially after putting a lot of work into an article and discovering a lot less than they hoped.

Example: Once long, long ago we had a “censorship” story about the cancelation of a course on pornography. The Chicago Reader had an article about an exhibition connected to the course. And then, students said, the course was canceled.

It turned out that the course wasn’t canceled; it just wasn’t scheduled, the instructors were teaching other courses. Were the teachers asked not to teach it? Our reporter didn’t ask them, and there was no evidence that they were influenced. The article framed the story as a “controversy,” but only quoted two students who were concerned. Two people don’t make a controversy.

Sourcing:

Are the sources appropriate and trustworthy?

Poor sourcing that excludes newsworthy viewpoints and facts is one of the main sources of bias in reporting. Consider the many news stories on student activism that quote school officials at length but exclude or marginalize the voices of students — and especially the activist students. Or stories about a strike that quote management but not the workers or their union. Or a story about how restaurant owners would suffer from raising the minimum wage to $15/hr, but only talks to the owners and not to the staff.

Multiple sources: If the story only has one source, the editor should be on guard and ask for more sources. One source is often sufficient for a news short, but in any story about a sensitive issue, or any major story, multiple sources are necessary both for credibility and just to get the important details and tell a good story.

Appropriate sources: It is important to represent all perspectives relevant to the story. If, for example, you are writing about an administration decision that affects faculty and students, you need to talk to faculty and students as well as an administration source.

The student voice: Too often students are not interviewed for articles on school policy or decisions. But it isn’t enough just to have the quotes; the  quotes have to do more than represent the student voice — they have to be interesting,  informative, or entertaining.

Trustworthy sources: Sources have their own points of view and sometimes they have a conscious agenda and goal in talking to the reporter. The reporter and editor need to recognize personal points of view and interests, and balance those comments with other sources when necessary for perspective. School officials and faculty are often constrained in their comments; they may not feel free to share the reasons for a decision or say anything that will present the school in an unflattering light. And of course students also may have a personal agenda; may not want to share experiences or opinions that may present them with personal difficulties or that may reflect badly on people or on causes that matter to them — or they may be angry or bitter, for good or poor reasons.

Anonymous sources: Sometimes you will want to protect the anonymity of a source who might face retaliation for speaking out. But there is a cost in credibility:

News accounts that rely on confidential sources do not contain within themselves the information required for us to trust them. By definition [readers] cannot “go to the source” because the source is hidden. If we extend our trust to such reports, we do so because of reputation: the reporter’s reputation, or more often the news brand’s.

—Jay Rosen

Here are the New York Times’ rules for use of anonymous sources. Here is the Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan on anonymous sources. The Times stresses the role of editors, who must be consulted and know the name of anonymous source for a lead (the essential part of the story) and higher bar for using direct quotes from an anonymous source. The Post stresses the necessity of anonymity to protect sources from retaliation and the need for additional corroboration.

Support: Does the article make claims it doesn’t support? Are generalizations supported with sources, examples, illustrations? In interviews, reporters need to be ready to ask follow-up questions; when sources generalize or are vague, ask them to be specific, ask for details, examples, story-telling. Sometimes you need to ask your source, How do you know? What are your sources!

Broken promises: Check if the headline or lead promise answers or conclusions the article doesn’t deliver. When the article makes a claim, is the claim supported?

Objectivity, fairness, bias: Do the fact checking, gauge the credibility of the perspective.

“Objective” is used in many ways, and it is a perennial issue in philosophy as well as media studies. Let’s be simple and say it means putting truth-seeking and fact-finding first and not being influenced by personal loyalties and preferences or by outside pressure.

Some people will dismiss what you say as biased if you have an opinion they don’t like or if your information conflicts with their beliefs; but this is just a ploy to silence you. Bias does not mean having a personal opinion, and objectivity does not mean having no opinions, passions, loyalties, commitments. “Bias” is not a useful concept if it is used to mean “having a point of view” — after all, don’t we all, always? Reserve the use of the term for when someone allows their personal opinions, loyalties, values prejudice their statements.  Partisans and activists can be objective — if they are committed to truth-seeking and fact-finding, if they put that commitment first and last, and if their writing shows that they do.

Writing in the first person or in the third person.

The simple definition of “objective” used here also implies that articles can be objective when written in the first person and in the voice of the writer rather than in the third person in the publication’s institutional voice. You may sometimes want to write in the conventional third person newswriting style just because you’re doing newswriting. And many readers understand this style as a promise of objectivity.

In every photograph, someone is deciding where to point  the camera, what to put in the picture, what to exclude, and how to focus the lens.

Editorializing: For this reason, reporters in the major dailies avoid “editorializing” in news reports. Editorializing is explicitly stating the reporter’s opinion in a news article. Journalism texts may tell you the place for opinion in news stories is reports of the opinions of sources. But, of course, every story embodies judgments about what the facts are, what matters and what doesn’t matter, what to include and what to exclude. In every photograph, someone is deciding where to point the camera, what to put in the picture, what to exclude, and how to focus the lens.

The “objective” third-person, facts-only newswriting style can be understood as a statement of the newspaper’s commitment to factual reporting and a plea for the reader’s trust. In any case, the ban on editorializing is an ideal that is in reality widely ignored in interpretive and analytical news articles.

Excluding perspectives biases the reporting

Example: An in-depth investigative piece shows that student art was being excluded from the school gallery. The article focused on the staff person who was the exhibitions director, but not on the senior faculty on the exhibitions committee, who may have been the more powerful actors in the story.

Example: A story covers the firing of a part-time faculty member, presenting the story from the point of view of the fired faculty member who blames the department chair. The department chair won’t comment and so we don’t have that perspective. The reporter doesn’t mention, let alone emphasize, that department chairs and school officials as a matter of policy will decline to comment on the reasons for a firing. This makes it more important to find independent corroboration of the faculty member’s account.

Defensive reporting and “he said, she said” reporting

Professional routines in reporting call for “balance” in order to appear “objective.” But objectivity is not the same as balance, and a mechanical resort to “balance” can lead to false equivalences and “he said, she said” reporting. Example: It is not objective reporting to balance a UN report on climate change with a quote from a global warming denier. (Yes, that was once often the practice even of the NY Times.) Or how about this Times article on “water witches” (also known as dowsers and doodlebugs), who “find” water when the stick they carry twitches. The headline with dek:

Here is media critic Jay Rosen showing what’s wrong with “he said, she said” reporting on abortion access by an NPR reporter, who takes the official explanation of  regulations limiting abortion in Kansas — they’re meant to protect women’s health, not as critics say “an attempt to drive the few remaining clinics out of business.” “No real attempt is made to assess clashing truth claims in the story,” as if the NPR reporter doesn’t know which view is right and has no way to determine the truth by more reporting.  ” ‘He said, she said’ does not serve listeners. It tries to shield NPR from another round of bias attacks.”

Journalism or PR?

Does reliance on your sources lead to writing that is more like a PR piece than journalism? Does the article read like the school’s PR? What makes the article different? Resist the temptation to trade away critical reporting for the privileges of access to administrators and faculty.

Put a leash on enthusiasm

Is the reporter a “fan” of the subject? When interviewing people you admire, leave the adjectives home. Remember, your feelings are not the subject of the article and distract the reader from the real story.

Example: When an F editor interviewed Yoko Ono, he was star-struck.

(Well, OK, it was Yoko, so maybe we give him a pass on that.)

Here is an article about how to talk to famous academics.

More thoughts about school news reporting

 News is a social construction

“News” is different at different schools, different as defined by different editorial staffs and, also, by the students, faculty and staff. If you compare F Newsmagazine to newspapers from other schools, you will find that most of them (almost all of them?) have a lot more in common with each other than with our art school newspaper.

Different people in a school will also have different ideas about what has news value. That’s why schools have public relations specialists and why student newspapers don’t always cover the people and events in the school’s publicity. The challenge, then, for the student newspaper editors, is to bypass the official and even conventional ideas of news value and understand what truly matters to the students, specifically in their school, and what writing and visual approaches will best connect with them.

How do we know what would interest our readers? Reporting begins with listening

Have we surveyed or at least talked to students, or are we making assumptions? The most basic task of a school news editor or reporter is to learn about student experiences, perceptions — what students know, think, feel about their experience at SAIC. The most motivated editors and writers are good listeners, talk to their potential readers often, and are ready to ask questions,

The best student newspapers, like mainstream newspapers, go for the big stories, the important issues, the controversies, but also provide information on less important but interesting people and events. One big story each issue and/or many small but with interesting information would make F Newsmagazine a place students would go to.

How should a school newspaper cover relevant national or regional news?

Should the student newspaper cover stories that directly affect college students, but can be covered more professionally by resource-rich mainstream news media?

Three perspectives, three choices.

1. Why echo what people can find elsewhere, done better, with more resources? Plus, it isn’t original reporting. Focus on our niche.
2. Our primary readers aren’t following the mainstream media, so we should inform them of the important developments. Some newspapers carry AP wire, showing only headlines or briefs.
3. Meet the problems with both these perspectives but report on the stories in your own way:  Cover news shorts from revealing angles that are ignored by mainstream media, but address student concerns. So the interpretation or framing of an article on student loan reforms in a NY Times article will often exclude a critical perspective you will find in an anti-establishment source such as studentloanjustice.org. The student newspaper can include both official and critical perspectives — and, also, the reaction and impact on your campus.

Note: We often get articles whose only sources are published reporting and research. Sometimes good commentary and analysis, but all originating in web searches. But why not call up or email some expert on the subject? You probably have some in the school — check the course schedule to see what faculty teach in the relevant subject area. It’s easy to find outside experts in a web search — authors of articles or books, people quoted as experts in articles on your subjects. If they are affiliated with an institution (or have a publisher, agent, gallerist), you can find contact information for them.

How do you come up with news ideas?

Watch the SAIC e-mail bulletins, watch the bulletin boards and the display monitors in the lobbies.
Find and keep the schedules for the Visiting Artist Program and the Siskel Film Center (especially films with filmmaker appearances), follow class Facebook pages and student Instagram accounts.

Set a Google alert for “School of the Art Institute of Chicago,” “Art Institute of Chicago,” “art schools,” and whatever subject areas you are planning to cover (e.g.,  “student debt” or “Title IX” or “safe spaces”).

But most of all, talk to students and teachers and ask them for suggestions, ask them what’s news, what is on their minds and what is being talked about.  Their opinion on any local or national or international event is news, if it is something students are talking about.

“Article mining”: you can look at other media to get ideas for articles.

• Other school newspapers — in particular, schools in the Chicago area and the newspaper of schools with large journalism departments. A web search for “college newspapers” will list them.
• Local news media for breaking news and controversies about local schools: Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Reader.
• The Chronicle of Higher Education. The trade publication most read by college faculty and administrators. You can pass the paywall through your library’s article database.
• Inside Higher Education. Online only, useful but without the reporting resources of the  Chronicle.
• Education coverage in major newspapers, such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. The Guardian will also cover national issues.
• COCAL: The  Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor. Organization for part-time faculty. The email newsletter of Joe Berry is valuable for understanding academic labor. To regularly receive this periodic news aggregator, COCAL Updates, Email <joeberry@igc.org>  It is archived at http://precaritydispatches.tumblr.com/COCAL-Updates-Archive
• Read your own school newspaper: Are there important stories covered in the past which deserve a follow-up investigation?  Did F print a story about an event or a plan, a change in curriculum or administration? A few months later you can do a follow-up story reporting on what has changed since. These stories are important — they satisfy people’s curiosity but also fulfill the “watchdog” function of the newspaper.

Politics and higher education: Some Issues

Follow the news reporting on national issues and government action on higher education, especially now, when the Republican Congress and the Trump administration threaten to roll back advances that matter to your community. Here are some areas which conservatives have targeted for change:

• Campus protest against white supremacy
• COVID-19: Safety, layoffs and budget cuts.
• Title IX enforcement: Title IX is the civil rights law covering sex and gender discrimination in education, including sexual assault.
• Student loans: More privatization, bringing in banks and unregulated private collection agencies, perhaps changes to income-based repayment and public-service loan forgiveness.
• Cuts in federal funding of all kinds, or increases, including for College Work/Study, NEA and NEH.
• Diversity: Trump administration Attacks on minority admissions and hiring.
• Free speech. Expect attacks on campus speech codes forbidding hate speech, stepped-up repression of student protests and protection of right-wing speakers, encouragement of “intellectual/ideological diversity” (i.e., conservatives), attacks on critics of Israel as anti-Semitic.
• Academic freedom. Expect media and political attacks on progressive faculty
• Immigration: How do campuses protect and support undocumented students?

What SAIC subjects has F Newsmagazine covered in the past?

The school news section covers the people, projects, issues and events at SAIC.

Most of the above, and most recently protests against the administration for failure to address white supremacy, coverage of the safety preparations for returning students during the pandemic, coverage of layoffs and budget cuts.

Teaching and learning at SAIC: Best practices in educating artists; student experience of the first year program; sophomore, junior seminars and capstone; artbash, BFA and MFA shows; collaboration and interdisciplinarity; critiques and critique week.

Diversity:  Admissions, faculty and staff hiring; curriculum reform; practice in critiques.

Other school issues: School budget; retention rates; conditions of part-time faculty, union drives; access to  equipment and resources; academic advising.

Student life: Health services; mental health services; student health plan; disability access and accommodation; student clubs and projects; student cooking in the dorms

What is the experience of students at the school?  People, projects and events of interest. Obviously, reviews and features about art exhibitions and projects. But anything about the student experience will be interesting to students — current tastes in music, what clubs and restaurants students go to, what clothes they wear, but most of all, what they want from the school and their experience as students here. You could take a video camera or phone and ask five students the same three questions —and you have a feature that might spread widely on campus social media.

• Surveys of student opinion and experience (“student life” and other oxymorons…)
• Diversity issues: racial, gender composition of student body, faculty
• How international students are affected by changes in travel during the pandemic
• Community and alienation
• Student groups — profile of a student group

 Note:
*OK, maybe the reporter is having a laugh, but the rigidity of the “he said, she said” convention of “both sides” reporting makes this Times article read like self-parody.