Newspaper Death Throes, Student Edition

Ethics, no. But if I started a fashion blog and I wanted to go to Fashion Week and I couldn't afford it, and it's a goddamn blog being done from my couch, then does it really matter who funds my trip?

He was doing the same thing.

 

Are you a long-time fashion writer with ties in the industry, and looking to make the blog an extension of your past work?

 

Seriously? That's your hangup? He had worked as a journalist before, so his being laid off and starting his own blog to try to get clips to get another job should be done from his couch?

 

I mean, sure, you have to draw a line somewhere--but that's the case with any rule. Slippery slope arguments are never very strong ones.

All ads are "selling coverage". If advertisers refused to buy ads in Section X, it most likely wouldn't exist. I could see some concern because this explicitly links to a certain type of coverage--and a particular managerial decision--but it seems to be this is very different than a usual concern about "buying" coverage. Presumably, but-for the decline in revenue cited, the IDS would send more reporters to the NCAA tournament on the paper's dime--indeed, the fact the reporters are paying their own way supports this. That's a different situation then one in which even if the paper had independent funds to cover an event, it would choose not do so (that is, it's only covering it because of the donation). Causation is important in assessing the ethical concerns.

In the name of clarity we could adopt the bright-line rule you propose--acknowledging rules will always be under- and over-inclusive--but the benefits to doing so--seem outweighed by the costs (depriving readers of more in-depth coverage, depriving writers of an opportunity*, etc.). It will be pretty clear in most cases whether an actual conflict exists--don't see why we need a rule, as opposed to a standard, to enforce it. This seems like another example of journalists getting wrapped up in meaningless "ethical" issues from their journalism 101 class that distract from actual issues of bias.

* Granted here, they are paying their own way.

 

I don't have a hangup. I'm trying to understand other people's hangup on this issue. I recall a lot of people cheering and donating for the Nats writer.

 

Sorry, but completely disagree.
This wasn't some huge public fundraising drive. It was IDS alums and friends of the IDS that put together the money, and it was organized by a guy on the beat a year ago. I got a DM about it late Sunday night and went Monday afternoon to donate and they were already over their total. It was an average of $25, coming from young professionals to people whose shoes they were in a few years before.
These kids bust their ass every single year and generally speaking are the hardest working college paper kids I've ever seen. I've bought their dinner/beer before, and there have been times when IDS kids crashed on floors and couches. There's not a difference between that and this.

 

Because, again, it's a different deal. One has a boss. One is blogging from his couch to try to gain clips to get a real job.

If his blog was a real job, that wouldn't be its end goal, right?

 

I don't understand why it's not a real job. Someone signing your paycheck or filing incorporation documents doesn't validate you as a journalist.

 

No. It used to. Not any more.

But it does validate how you get to places, and how you cover them. Would his future career have been helped by him saying "Hey, I didn't go to spring training, but here's my couch piece on the battle for the fourth outfield spot as a clip?" No. So since he had no professional attachment to a place with an ethics agreement, he did what he had to do to get the information he needed to do what he wanted to do.

If Bleacher Report bloggers pay for an interview, it means less than if CBS News does.

 

Meanwhile, one state over, the Daily Illini is in the hole to the tune of six figures. The student body has voted a $3 dollar per semester per student fee (about $240,000 annually) that will help cut the deficit of $250,000-plus. The paper (and associated yearbook and other media outlets) have never taken university money.

 

Some dudes from Blog Inside The Hall (which has an aversion to anything less than super positive, and to IU football, which I guess are sort of the same thing) tried to solicit donations so they could go to Portland. I find that odious. "Hey, send me and my blog! Whoo hoo!!!"

That's much different than "Give some kids an opportunity that may never come again."

We both have a personal stake in this. You because apparently you know these kids, me because I'm an alum who donated. Clouds our judgment.

I understand this.

But I come down on the side of the fact that this might well be a once in a lifetime opportunity for these kids. The mission of a student newspaper doesn't have to include the opportunity for student paper bigwigs to beat their chests and scream about ethical coverage while denying their peers such an opportunity. The chance to cover the NCAAs validates the decision to major in journalism more than covering any student government "scandal" or other such "big story."

I felt differently when I was a student media jockey. I was into the constant need to trumpet "ethics!!!" Now I see that the student paper is first and foremost a learning lab. And teaching the "lesson" that newspapers have no money is really teaching younglings that their management, and the newspaper industry, both suck.

 

That's the problem. You're letting relationships with buddies cloud ethical judgment.

There are journalists everywhere that similarly bust their asses -- professional and student -- who don't get to go on trips because of budgetary situations all of the time.

There is nothing special about this instance which makes it OK.

And it's not as if the IDS isn't going at all. They're sending who they can afford to send.