Hindsight, Jan. 29, 2020

The weekly critique of The Doane Owl and Doaneline

Praises:

Design:

Most pages look well designed.

Most scatter art.

Several are at least 1/3rd art.

A few use dominant art.

Headline of the Week: Ase is on the case, new counseling duo hired.

Visuals:

Love the P. 1 dragon photo for the flag. Great shot.

Glad we got photos of Nguyen and Ase. We had to get shots of both.

I also like the photos on P. 4 of the drumming and dragons. Good work by Meaghan Stout.

Good graphic from Nishesh Yadav on off-campus living.

Speaking of good graphics, check out Stephanie Hoshor’s snow beer graphic on P. 5. Well done.

I like the tight wrestling shot from Caitlyn Nelson.

Thanks to Kassi Blatchford for her photo of an iPhone to accompany the suicide hotline piece.

Also, good work by Maci Lyman to shoot someone blowing her nose for the flu story. I’m glad we were spared any snot shots.

Photo of the Week: Flag dragon photo by Meaghan Stout.

Graphic of the Week: Toss up between off-campus living by Nishesh Yadav and snow beer graphic by Stephanie Hoshor.

Writing:

Bailey Roberts wrote a couple of stories that I liked:

1. Suicide hotline. Good work to tell students that there is a new way to seek help.
2. Flu strikes back. Excellent public service piece.

Glad we documented the story of Doane’s first Irene Ryan (aka Granny on the “Beverly Hillbillies”) award winner.

Fun story about Ase the dog helping to counsel Doane students. Thanks Caitlyn (her second P. 1 piece).

Decent columns this week from various staffers.

Another good piece — her second sports story of the week — from Caitlyn Nelson.

I enjoyed Meaghan Stout’s piece on the Lunar New Year.

Lede of the Week: Nurse Kelly Jirovec says Nebraska is known to have high flu rates every year, and this year is no exception. — Bailey Roberts.

General praise: Putting the paper to bed about 10:30 p.m. is a plus for everyone. Keep up the efficiency.

Problems:

Design:

P. 1 violates the concept of modular design. Instead of a rectangle, the main story design actually is a dogleg to the left. We should avoid. Stories + art should = rectangle.

I would avoid a two-line hed for the counseling story. I’d simple write: Ase is on the case. Then, I’d write a deck: Pooch calms/students seeking/counseling help.

The black border around the Kobe Bryant story is too wide. The story is about death. We don’t need to make it look funereal.

We still need headline hierarchy.

I’d move crime log lower on the page.

Editorial and op-ed page are too gray, IMHO.

P. 3 design is kind of a jumble

I understand why we jumped the Kobe story to sports but why put it at the top of the page? If you’re a Doane wrestler or golfer, you gotta wonder why Kobe ranks higher than you in your own college paper.

Visuals:

Printing text over a photo is not a good idea UNLESS you find dead space on the photo to put the text. The Kobe story suffers from text being placed on a photo. In print, form follows function. The function is for people to read it and understand. Why would we make it more difficult for readers?

I would crop the Jimmy Nguyen photo on P.1 and the Hall of Fame photo. Through cropping, you can focus better on the action.

We simply need more — and better — photos. For example, is there a photo that could go with the indoor golf piece?

Writing:

Attribute information after the first quoted sentence.

I like the puppet in the photo on the top story, but I’ve read every word on P. 1 and still don’t know what the puppet has to do with the story or the award.

Omit needless words.

Edit the word “very” from your stories — unless it’s used in a quote.

The Kobe story should be a localization. What does that mean? It means we put what locals are saying or doing early in the story, often in the lede. In other words, the lede on this story is buried in the jump.

Look, I get that Kobe was a revered figure for Doane athletes and students. I understand the desire to honor him with a story. In fact, I would love to read a story quoting Doane basketball players, athletes and students talking about their memories of him, or how they tried to emulate him. But our story — about 35 inches long, BTW — fails to do that. We quote ESPN pieces. We quote Jerry West as if we picked up the phone and talked to him, which we didn’t. We quote USA Today. We quote a soccer team’s website, more ESPN people, a sports documentary on ESPN, sportswriter Rick Reilly, etc. But we quote only one Doane athlete — and that person should be at the top of the story, not on the P. 8 jump. We needed more quotes from Doane people. In other words, I can see what Stephen A. Smith has to say about Kobe — though why I would ever want to listen to that windbag is beyond me — on ESPN. I can read about the national stuff nearly anywhere. I cannot read about Doane athletes’ and students’ feelings and thoughts about Kobe anywhere else but the Owl. And that’s why we should find more than one local source in a 35-inch story. Does that take more work? You’re damn straight it does. You would have to interview several people and write about them. But the story would be much more memorable and compelling to our audience — students — than a rehash from other, national sources.

BTW, I agree Kobe was a special player. Certainly one of the Top 10 NBA players of all time. But to suggest he’s the best player of all time is ignoring a Who’s Who of great players from the past: Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jerry West himself, Magic, Larry Bird, Oscar Robertson (who, for an entire year, averaged a double-double), Wilt Chamberlain and, of course, the man with the most championships of all-time, Bill Russell. The point? Be careful with hyperbole.

What is the Victorville Daily Press? I know most news organizations. I’ve never heard of this. I had to Google it. It’s a small news organization in California. Readers won’t know that so we need to educate them.

Student Press Freedom Day was Wednesday, not Thursday as our story states.

Also, I fail to see the point of the Student Press Freedom Day story. I mean, I believe in the day, but if you’re a reader, you probably would look at the story and say, “So what?” Are we celebrating it in any way? That might be newsworthy. Otherwise, it’s not news. After all, Wednesday also was National Corn Chip Day and National Puzzle Day but I failed to see any stories about those products.

Does anyone read the Doane Crime Log? Doesn’t it shock you that a “forcible rape” occurred in some residence hall — who knows which one? — and we don’t have a story about it? It’s “forcible rape,” for God’s sake. And what dorm? If the point of the crime log is to alert students to crimes so that they can protect themselves, how is any student going to protect herself with such unspecific information? In addition, we have not one, but two, motor vehicle “hit and runs.” That sounds like a trend to me. Perhaps we should at least write a brief about it?

I’m all for drinking. I’m all for drinking for a cause. But do we expect students to shell out $100 a ticket for a Wine & Dine event? I thought you folks were too poor for even a dog and a beer, let another a $100 ticket for wining and dining. Does this story speak to our audience?

Generally, write stories in past tense.

In survey stories, the survey isn’t the most important info. The important point should be what the survey reveals. So, for the off-campus story, the lede should be: Seven of 10 Doane students would prefer to live off campus if requirements weren’t in place, a survey shows.

Use bullets to make specific points within a story.

ID people in stories.

Explain unknown information. Example: What is a 410 shotgun? Do you mean 410-caliber shotgun?

What is Hall Costs? Are we talking about a Doane University web page that estimates hall costs? Then say so.

Like Kobe, the Busch Beer story is a localization. Put what locals are doing or saying about it first.

We buried the lede on the wrestling story. Anyone who upsets the ninth-ranked wrestler in the nation deserves the lede. After all, it’s not news that the wrestlers “competed.”

What is the 141 division in the wrestling story? Do we mean 141-pounds? Then we should say so.

Style:

AP Style says to avoid using “last Friday.” It’s either Friday or the date.

Titles after names are lowercase.

Grammar:

In nearly all cases, the comma goes within quote marks.

Doane’s Counseling Center is a single entity. Only one exists. Since that’s the case, the pronoun must be the singular, “it,” not their.

The cutline reads: “A student blows their nose …” A student means that only one student exists. That means we need a singular pronoun. “A student blows her nose …” This story is not a gender issue, so why use their?

Doaneline:

Wonderful job by Bailey Roberts and Kate Weinandt to put together, at the last minute, an informative obituary of former Doane president Phil Heckman — he of Heckman Auditorium fame — who died Wednesday. Exceptional work. And it includes links!

We also have links — and audio of an interview — on the FIRE story about Doane being one of the 10 worst colleges for free speech. Talk about comprehensive — I think we touched on nearly every possible source for this story. It is well done. And it has links. My only beef? It was posted in the wee hours of the morning, when everyone, of course, couldn’t wait to access their phones for the news … while they slept. Timeliness, folks, is an element of news.