Fall 2005 PDF - Milton Academy

“When they apply to write news, theyaren’t aware of what they will really haveto do,” says Charlie. “They’ll have to doinvestigative reporting, interviewing—andthat’s a new expertise—show flexibility,use people skills, think while they takenotes and ask good questions. People wechoose for the staff need room to grow,too. Noah wrote a style guide that includedall our standards. We tried to assign peoplebased on their skills and in the endhad to edit strongly: restructure,rephrase—mostly in communication withthe writers, but I wish even more so.”Motivating staff“The staff is huge,” Liz says. “They’re notpart of the editing process, and we brainstormtogether but we often give themtheir assignments by email. They don’tsee the effects of late responses or sloppywriting. So we held a writers’ conferenceand we walked the staff through thewhole process of putting out the Measure,to help them understand and to feelresponsibility.”“We used the seminar/conference to try tobuild a cohesive unit, to create attachmentand loyalty,” Dan explained. “We madediagrams and showed them how manysteps go into a single issue: it’s a threelayerprocess, and lots of people read eachpiece. Sixty active people are on theMeasure staff. People in Class II are ourcritical players, though, and they’re busy!”Finding real news“We had a bit of an identity crisis in themiddle of the year,” Siobhan allowed. “Wethought we were turning into a lifestylemagazine with the articles on stress andseasonal depressive disorder, and exams.Slow news weeks are a problem.”Understanding the audience“The Measure publishes for students andadults, for alumni and even the generalpublic. How much should we gear thepaper to the student body? We’ve given alot of thought to how to do our work seriously,and yet be more interesting andeven exciting,” Dan says.“We did a Paper survey in mid-November,”Noah says. “We heard from a lot of peoplethat they appreciated the higher quality ofthe news. But we have to stake out a middleground. We have to satisfy the communitywithout pandering to them.”What’s happening to journalism?“The media today is less about the communityglue and more about the entertainmentdollar,” Noah asserts. “We saw thatwith the presidential election process, andnow we’ve seen it (this past spring) withour own School. Every field has discouragingaspects, but many journalists seem tohave forgotten who they serve. Journalistsare a pillar on which society rests.”“One problem with TV news,” Molly says,“is that it’s reductionist at best. The needto be driven by the visual automaticallyconstrains the story. It forces the soundbite. The emphasis is on what sells ratherthan what’s news. Priorities are reshuffledin a bad way.” “We saw this around theelection,” Charlie adds. “When politiciansspeak there should be an automatic instinctto fact check, but that seems to be obsolete.You need to keep your ratings up.”“Fact checking should occur, and reportingfacts should be an unbiased effort,” Noahsays. “People seem to be applying to thefacts the same reactions they are entitledto have to editorials: Everyone now thinksthey’re entitled to their own set of facts.We journalists need to shift the bias backtoward the truth; it’s the journalist’s job toground the community in the facts. Factsare not a flip of the coin. Opinions are aflip of the coin.”“I’m not being paid for what I do as ajournalist in School; on the other hand, Idon’t have to worry about losing my job,or my paper going down,” Dan says. “ Ican see why people blog, but in a blog, theemphasis is more on who the person is,and less on what the news is. It would behard to go into a journalistic career now;it’s more about entertainment. Look athow the Globe reshaped itself to be moreabout entertainment.”“No one reads,” Lizzy says. “Newspapersare old-fashioned. People are verylethargic in how they go about gettingtheir information.”26 Milton Magazine