2008 Woodie Awards
Reckless Rhetoric
Oja
Issue date: 9/9/05 Section: Commentary
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Hurricane Katrina - or, more accurately, the levee break and ensuing flood that it caused in New Orleans - has been dominating headlines since it strengthened over the Gulf of Mexico two weeks ago. While glued to CNN's coverage of the situation in New Orleans, I was intrigued by a point made by a correspondent on Wolf Blitzer's Situation Room. Jack Cafferty's assertion was that the nearly limitless news coverage of the hurricane could be taken as a reaffirmation of the integrity of American journalism. He cited a BBC report that offered backhanded praise of hurricane coverage, saying that this was the first real news story in American headlines in the states. Cafferty opened this up for debate; in his question of the hour to viewers, he asked if networks' coverage of the flooding did anything to restore public faith in an industry that had spent a summer obsessed with such fluff subjects as Michael Jackson, Natalee Holloway, and Martha Stewart.
For this viewer, Jack, it did. As someone who spends a good deal of time around one particular "news" (I'm using that term loosely for the moment) organization, I'm constantly debating with myself what my aims ought to be. As a journalist, my job is to inform viewers accurately and with some semblance of clarity. But as a college journalist, some feel my goal needs to be different. I have an obligation to grab the eye of potential readers. We need to push the Maroon-News not as a viable news source, but as a publication that has relevance in the lives of Colgate students. Humor, sometimes remarkably tasteless, has proven a successful way of going about this.
The M-N has received a great deal of flak from readers this week. Again, this brings about mixed feelings. It is great that enough people see the paper - and even better that enough people care about what we're saying - to respond to what we produce. On the other hand, some of the negative responses we've received to the headline on Page One of last week's edition (which read "Where My Ho At?" in reference to the Ho Science Building currently under construction) are disappointing - if possible, we'd rather not offend anyone. Our goal is to shock, but never to leave a bad taste in the readership's collective mouth. I should add that I'm speaking for myself here; I'm not reading from the M-N's mission statement, nor do I care to apologize to anyone on behalf of the paper. The only headlines I write are my own, so any apology from me could sound pretty empty. Yet it is my opinion that our college newspaper should continue to straddle the fence that separates tabloid from respectable news.
For this viewer, Jack, it did. As someone who spends a good deal of time around one particular "news" (I'm using that term loosely for the moment) organization, I'm constantly debating with myself what my aims ought to be. As a journalist, my job is to inform viewers accurately and with some semblance of clarity. But as a college journalist, some feel my goal needs to be different. I have an obligation to grab the eye of potential readers. We need to push the Maroon-News not as a viable news source, but as a publication that has relevance in the lives of Colgate students. Humor, sometimes remarkably tasteless, has proven a successful way of going about this.
The M-N has received a great deal of flak from readers this week. Again, this brings about mixed feelings. It is great that enough people see the paper - and even better that enough people care about what we're saying - to respond to what we produce. On the other hand, some of the negative responses we've received to the headline on Page One of last week's edition (which read "Where My Ho At?" in reference to the Ho Science Building currently under construction) are disappointing - if possible, we'd rather not offend anyone. Our goal is to shock, but never to leave a bad taste in the readership's collective mouth. I should add that I'm speaking for myself here; I'm not reading from the M-N's mission statement, nor do I care to apologize to anyone on behalf of the paper. The only headlines I write are my own, so any apology from me could sound pretty empty. Yet it is my opinion that our college newspaper should continue to straddle the fence that separates tabloid from respectable news.