Here we are, halfway through another school year. To my Hopkins readers, congratulations! You’ve made it this far. Stick it out, and Spring Fair will be right around the corner before you know it. To my readers in Baltimore and around the world, thanks for joining me as I tackle another semester at The News-Letter through your eyes.
When I started recording data on the number of different types of perspectives represented in The News-Letter, I wanted to give editors a benchmark to measure the scope of each week. That’s not to say they should always strive to increase these numbers — at some point, the paper will reach critical mass and just be too full. Instead, I hope it can offer a new way to track coverage from one week to the next.
A firm press deadline can feel like the end-all be-all for News-Letter reporters in the run-up to Wednesday night. The news editors wrap up their section and head home sometime early Thursday morning while the Editors-in-Chief send the pages off to print. If they’re lucky, the news team will have time to breathe over the weekend until Wednesday starts to loom again.
As the Public Editor, I scrutinize the ways the paper represents its readers. The News-Letter is a campus newspaper, and undergraduate students make up the primary readership. I think a lot about the different types of undergrads that the paper represents, as well as who is most likely to pick up a fresh issue on a Thursday afternoon.
I’ve written a lot in the last month about the importance of print journalism — the tactile pleasure of turning fine pages over beneath your fingers, the permanence (and accountability) of seeing words enshrined in ink on paper.
After three and a half years at The News-Letter, I’m pretty confident that I’d ace a quiz on the parts of the paper’s front page. Even just above the fold — what we call the top half that’s visible when you see the paper around campus — there’s already a lot going on.
Four and a half years ago, the University shut down the Hopkins chapter of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon after reports of sexual assault at one of the fraternity’s parties. In an editorial headlined “SAE suspension wrong, requires reversal,” The News-Letter called the decision “draconian,” prompting understandable pushback from readers.
So last week’s editorial was titled “Does print journalism have a future?” Pretty dramatic. I bet the irony was especially tactile if you read that in the print issue. More likely, though, you were reading online. Maybe you were browsing our website or our Facebook page, and you raised your eyebrows and thought, this feels relevant to what I’m doing right at this very moment.
You might notice that something’s a bit different this week — I’m not directly responding to reader criticisms! Don’t worry, that doesn’t mean I haven’t heard from any readers recently. Y’all are out there and you definitely have thoughts, so continue to share those with me.
The News-Letter got a letter to the editor this week. It’s the first in quite a while — the first this calendar year, actually. In the last two years, the paper has only received 11 letters to the editor, three of which responded to a particularly spicy op-ed arguing that conservatives’ free speech was under attack. This made me wonder: what exactly is a letter to the editor?
A few readers pushed back against last week’s front-page headline “Students question impact of Philosophy donation.” The feature was an update on last year’s $75 million donation to the University’s philosophy department.
Let me set a scene: It’s late on a Wednesday night at the Gatehouse, the little cottage at the bottom corner of campus where The News-Letter happens. News editors have just begun to lay out their pages, and have realized that they don’t have enough photos. Let the brainstorming begin — run across campus to snap a quick pic of such-and-such building even though it’s dark. Pester writers to see if they took any photos. When in doubt, use a file photo of the Gilman clock tower.
Here we are, two weeks into the semester. How’s everyone feeling? To the editors at The News-Letter, congratulations on the first issue of the year. To my fellow readers, congratulations on successfully kicking off another semester.
A few weeks after I started writing for The News-Letter, I covered a speaker who visited campus. Afterward, when I asked a person nearby if I could interview them for a few quick thoughts, they gave me an icy glare and answered, “Sorry, but I don’t talk to people from The News-Letter.”
The News-Letter has heard a range of concerns from our readers about an op-ed titled “Progressives should not insist on anti-zionism” which we published last week.
