HvZ: The Aftermath

News Editor Andrea Hewitt, who wrote last week’s story about HvZ, asked to use the editor’s blog as a place to discuss why the Index chose to run a story about HvZ. We received quite a bit of backlash about the story, hopefully this will help to clear up any concerns about why we thought it was newsworty.

Let me start out by saying this isn’t an apology or retraction. I’m not sorry about how HvZ was covered in the last edition of the Index. I’m writing this to clarify why I decided to run an HvZ story and why I chose that angle. The job of assigning stories falls on the assistant news editor Dan Warner and myself. Each week, we sift through potential story ideas and decide what we want to cover based on some criteria ­— the main question we consider being “Is this newsworthy?”

As you all know, HvZ is played once a semester. The newsworthiness is not the fact that it’s happening. People already know it’s happening, or can assume it is by the fact that hundreds of students are running around campus with nerf guns and bandanas wrapped around their head/arm. The newsworthiness exists in three main points, which I think are laid out clearly in my article,

1. The two incidents that happened

2. HvZ is trying to become an organization and the risk management concerns with a game where hundreds of college students are running all over campus

3. HvZ is holding an invitational at Truman April 2.

This isn’t a community bulletin where your mom submits clips about how great you ran a game of tag on campus. I’m not your mom. My goal as news editor is to inform readers of community and campus news with the most accurate information available and without bias. I didn’t include any commentary on HvZ. I have no personal vendetta with the game. If I wasn’t in the newsroom 20 to 30 hours a week, I’d consider strapping on a bandana and rolling up some socks.

Look guys, I’m not mad that 7 to 8 percent of the student body is probably egging my house right now. We’re not so different. Journalism is my passion much like HvZ is many of our readers’ passion. I’m just reporting the facts, not trying to break your spirits.

One last thing: Thanks for the feedback. I don’t want to speak for all the editors, but feedback, negative or positive, is a well enjoyed at the ‘Dex. Talk to me if you feel you’ve been wronged by an article. We are eager to talk with you about editorial decisions we make. Let’s keep the lines of communication open.

Andrea

Election coverage analysis – what a night!

This fall 2010 has been a busy one for the Index. Well, pretty much any news outlet in the country — it was election season. And we had been prepping all semester for our Nov. 2 live coverage of local and state elections. Tuesday was quite a hectic night.

On top of putting together our usual 20 pages of content, we were developing a special basketball preview section and covering election results (in nearly real time!).

Now, the Index doesn’t do much real time coverage. Even breaking news takes some time to get out to the masses — and we don’t just shovel breaking news onto the website without thoroughly editing it first. But this was as real-time as the Index has ever been. Reporter Kaitlin Davis, who was stationed at the Adair County Courthouse throughout the night, brought the election results packet back to the office around 9 p.m. From that point on, we were updating results from that packet and from state-wide election results found on the Secretary of State website, for a good two hours.

It was an adrenaline filled evening, and my first experience with live coverage of an event. Here are some things I learned from our 2010 Election Day coverage.

1. You better be 100 percent sure.We didn’t have time to carefully step through each line of the results packet we received. We had to quickly and accurately interpret hundreds of statistics crammed into 20 pages. Myself or our News Editor Andrea Hewitt would read off results, type them into a Google Doc, and our Online Editor Patrick Gross updated the website with our around 40-word updates. This happened every few minutes for about two hours. And we didn’t have the option of being wrong. We had to be sure that what we told Patrick was absolutely correct — otherwise hundreds of people would read incorrect information before we realized it needed to be changed — and the last thing we want to do is misinform people.

2. You better be willing to run, not walk. We worked with News 36 and KTRM throughout the night, and several times I sprinted down the halls of Barnett to their offices, trying to figure out which outlet had live interviews with candidates, confirming things sources had announced live on air before placing it on the Index website and sharing information with them as it was passed along to us. And that is part of live coverage in any medium. I burned my calories that night, and it paid off. We caught some amazing quotes from candidates interviewed on-air, because we knew when they would be on. It also helped because our reporters roaming about weren’t able t talk to all the candidates that night.

3. Sharing can be good — but be sure you trust the middle man. Because of our small staff and our inability to be everywhere at once (especially because all editors had to be in the office to put together our normal print edition), we did receive some information from News 36 and KTRM. However, as we were listening to a live phone interview with candidate for the Missouri Senate District 18 race Brian Munzlinger, I thought I heard him say that incumbent Wes Shoemyer had called and conceded to Munzlinger. However, I had been doing about 1oo things at one time and wanted to be certain I’d heard what I thought I’d heard. So I sprinted down the hall to the radio station to get a confirmation from someone who had been working in their control room. Unfortunately, no one in the KTRM office had been listening to the interview. I felt frustrated that I couldn’t get a confirmation right away, since there were at least three people in KTRM while the interview was happening, but I realized it is also important not to rely on other news sources for information. We heard the confirmation later, but I wish I could’ve gotten it then and there.

 

I’d say overall the coverage went smoothly. I’m happy with how hard everyone on staff worked last week, and while I’m grateful every week isn’t election week (phew!), it was an exciting night.

Hope that is an interesting peek into a crazed night at the Dex.

Keep on readin’,

Brenna

Election Coverage 2010!

Check out our Election coverage tomorrow and Wednesday! We’ll have results, analysis, photos and lots of fun!

www.trumanindex.com

Also check out News36 and KTRM 88.7 from 8 – 10 p.m. There will be special guests, political analysts and candidate interviews.

Make sure and vote tomorrow!

Keep on readin’,

Brenna