Our Voice
Why we do what we do
Issue date: 9/21/07 Section: Opinion
It came to our attention at the most recent Colonnade staff meeting that some students wish we would cover more national issues in our newspaper. And to be honest, this isn’t the first time we’ve heard this from our readers.
It won’t be the last either. For a number of reasons, our content will need to stay similar to what we have now.
The fact is, the purpose of The Colonnade is to cover the issues that affect the students, and to report on the events that affect them. Sometimes there is some overlap, as national events do trickle down to affect the students here in Milledgeville, but there are plenty of big stories (particularly those involving celebrities) that are hard to localize.
Sure, the latest drama with Britney Spears is interesting, but it isn’t news that belongs in The Colonnade. Yes, some of our readers do care about Britney and the latest fiasco threatening her career, but it’s hard to localize. Unless she came to town (that’ll never happen), she wouldn’t be fit to print in The Colonnade.
Even more serious stories are sometimes hard to include, and, once again, the issue is localization. Stories that hit close to home, like Michael Vick and the dogfighting accusations, are still hard to include because Vick isn’t tied to our University. No students on our campus openly participate in dogfights, and, if we did write a story about it, we’d have nothing in it other newspapers
wouldn’t have.
Which leads us to the other issue that mandates what we do and do not run, and that is whether, by covering the story, we could do a better job of it than another, larger newspaper.
We don’t take large-scale news stories because other papers available on campus, like The New York Times, cover them in more depth and in a more timely fashion than we could ever hope to do.
We can’t compete with the Times, so we have to localize our focus to the Milledgeville area, particularly to the campus, lest we also begin to step on the toes of the other local papers, who (again) publish more often than we do, and would likely beat us to the punch.
So we focus hard on what we can cover, and we resolve to do so better than our competitors. So we cover art shows, concerts, plays, meetings, sporting events, management and everything else that affects the campus, and the students that call it home.
Yeah, some of the stories aren’t the most exciting things to read about. In all fairness, they’re not that interesting to write about sometimes as well. The trick is when we’re able to take a story of little interest and turn it into something cool.
But, when the good stories come around, The Colonnade always tries to rise to the occasion and cover the story to the best of our abilities. Yeah, sometimes it’s a flop, but, once again, when everything comes together, the results can be spectacular.
That’s something the Times can’t hope to keep up with.
We do the best we can, and we know we can’t always cover everything. But, if there’s something you want, there are many ways to let us know. Drop us a line in the Vent, or send a letter to the editor. We want to know what you want, and how we can serve you best in our own, little way.
Send responses to the editor
It won’t be the last either. For a number of reasons, our content will need to stay similar to what we have now.
The fact is, the purpose of The Colonnade is to cover the issues that affect the students, and to report on the events that affect them. Sometimes there is some overlap, as national events do trickle down to affect the students here in Milledgeville, but there are plenty of big stories (particularly those involving celebrities) that are hard to localize.
Sure, the latest drama with Britney Spears is interesting, but it isn’t news that belongs in The Colonnade. Yes, some of our readers do care about Britney and the latest fiasco threatening her career, but it’s hard to localize. Unless she came to town (that’ll never happen), she wouldn’t be fit to print in The Colonnade.
Even more serious stories are sometimes hard to include, and, once again, the issue is localization. Stories that hit close to home, like Michael Vick and the dogfighting accusations, are still hard to include because Vick isn’t tied to our University. No students on our campus openly participate in dogfights, and, if we did write a story about it, we’d have nothing in it other newspapers
wouldn’t have.
Which leads us to the other issue that mandates what we do and do not run, and that is whether, by covering the story, we could do a better job of it than another, larger newspaper.
We don’t take large-scale news stories because other papers available on campus, like The New York Times, cover them in more depth and in a more timely fashion than we could ever hope to do.
We can’t compete with the Times, so we have to localize our focus to the Milledgeville area, particularly to the campus, lest we also begin to step on the toes of the other local papers, who (again) publish more often than we do, and would likely beat us to the punch.
So we focus hard on what we can cover, and we resolve to do so better than our competitors. So we cover art shows, concerts, plays, meetings, sporting events, management and everything else that affects the campus, and the students that call it home.
Yeah, some of the stories aren’t the most exciting things to read about. In all fairness, they’re not that interesting to write about sometimes as well. The trick is when we’re able to take a story of little interest and turn it into something cool.
But, when the good stories come around, The Colonnade always tries to rise to the occasion and cover the story to the best of our abilities. Yeah, sometimes it’s a flop, but, once again, when everything comes together, the results can be spectacular.
That’s something the Times can’t hope to keep up with.
We do the best we can, and we know we can’t always cover everything. But, if there’s something you want, there are many ways to let us know. Drop us a line in the Vent, or send a letter to the editor. We want to know what you want, and how we can serve you best in our own, little way.
Send responses to the editor
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