During my three years of reporting at the University, I’ve always strived to make my articles appeal to the masses.
Now, just this once, I’m writing my parting thoughts to a select group of people: print journalism students on campus.
This won’t be eloquent; it will be heartfelt.
There is a type of journalism student who, when asked why he or she chose journalism, responds, “Because I like to write.” Those people need to leave journalism now. Public relations will allow them to reap more riches, endure less stress and hold together a long-term relationship, and they’ll still get to write.
There is another type of journalism student: one who enters a low-paying, high-stress, thankless job because he or she one day wants to defend and inform a faceless public in a chaotic, interest-infested society. When you ask them their reasons for going into journalism and let them use only one word, you hear words like “liberty,” “fairness,” “freedom,” “democracy” and “accountability,” not words like “profit,” “fame” or “image.”
Those lofty values are their special interests, interests that people in this great country should find special. Those people will one day improve some small slice of the world. They’ll nudge this little experiment called democracy a bit back on course.
This University needs those people.
Being a journalist takes understanding, not knowledge. It takes the understanding that for just a little while your own opinions don’t matter, and that it’s easier to have an opinion than it is to not. Understanding that all people should be questioned, even those who have the most to lose by lying, and especially them. Understanding that everybody, even the liars and cheats, even the helpless and especially the helpless, deserves to be treated fairly.
Most of all, it takes the understanding that listening and watching is more important than talking or performing.
That’s what this community, and the people who run it, need: to be watched and listened to. They will try to operate in secret. President Dave Frohnmayer helped author open records laws as a state representative and defended and enforced them as the state attorney general, but some of the people who work under him think they can do their jobs better without public scrutiny, and sometimes he makes excuses for them.
The University’s lawyers often either ignore, lose or forget about records requests. When they do respond, they’ll charge $75 an hour to search for the records and black out the parts you can’t see. It can take months to get the most basic records, records that any student, faculty member, Eugene resident, foreign national or drunk transient has a right to come in out of the rain and see.
They have excuses (usually limited resources), but the fact remains that this University is the most inefficient agency I’ve seen yet in terms of handling and releasing records. With Frohnmayer at the helm, this University should lead in terms of openness.
I know it sounds like I’m just bitching. I am, and I’ve been bitching for years on your behalf. Push to see these records because rights slip into the shadows when you don’t exercise them.
The spokespeople for this University will block your interviews with many of our most knowledgeable and otherwise open public servants. Sometimes they’ll cancel interviews and release a silly, cryptic statement that leaves reporters scratching their heads and leaves the public in the dark.
Do what’s necessary to talk to the people whom the public needs to hear.
There are certain lines you’ll hear again and again reporting on this campus. Here are a few of the excuses I’ve seen:
? “We’re taking group responsibility” – This one most often comes out of student government and fraternities when they mess up (usually by breaking the law), but I don’t believe any department is immune. They’ll assign group punishments to make it a learning process. Ignore their lines. Push to find the names of people responsible and always hold them individually accountable, especially elected officials. Groups don’t screw up; people screw up, and readers have a right to know who they are.
? “This is a self-imposed punishment” – Those same groups will often elect to take self-imposed punishments. These are usually lies, and if they are not slaps on the wrist they often don’t even intend to follow through with the punishment. Make sure that they document it and you get copies of the documents. Campus is still part of the real world. There is a reason laws, judges and juries decide punishments, not the criminals themselves.
? “This is a personnel matter” – There are times when the public’s need to know overrides a public servant’s right to privacy. The University will say it’s a personnel matter, and they can’t talk about it, but everything is a personnel matter. This University is run by people, not robots or animals. They will use this excuse to protect their friends or because it’s too much of a hassle (legal or otherwise) to deal with problem employees.
The University needs more journalists who want to write for a purpose, not just write.
The Emerald already has some of them, students whom I feel proud to have worked with through my years here.
Right now I see the future of campus journalism in Ryan Knutson (affectionately known at Special K in the office) and Ed Oser. Ryan, a reporter this year and next year’s editor in chief, looks you in the eye and listens intently, a skill some people won’t ever learn. He has drive to be the best, but he also cares about other people. That’s rare and valuable.
Ed, a general assignment reporter this year and next, is pure curiosity with some loner inclinations, traits that’ll take him far. Even as the Emerald crew waited in a Portland Red Robin for a table, Ed wandered outside to see a city the Chicago native doesn’t know. And, for some reason, Ed is convinced that he sucks as a reporter.
And my last pieces of advice for the next generation of principled journalists is not to get all uppity, despite your lofty values. Never forget those values, but always remember you’re a college student, too.
Drink, hook up and tell dirty jokes while you can, because, as my mom painfully pointed out to me last week, the day will come when we each have to leave Disneyland.