This is it? Really? One 677-word story in the Chron\'s Wednesday sports section -- written by a "team" of student "journalists" -- has everybody\'s panties in a bunch?
Maybe it\'s just me -- reading the news is simply a busman\'s holiday anymore -- and everything I read gets filtered through my editor\'s mind, but this story essentially says nothing. Whoever edited this at the Chron did a pathetic job. Just two athletes and two professors quoted, and none of the four advisers who purportedly compiled the list. There are so many holes in this story, so many missing essential details that would give a more precise picture of what these courses are about ... but then we would have no story, right?
Interesting comments by the sociology professor -- was she offended because her class was perceived to be easy, or did she just not want the AD directing athletes to her class -- seems like "interpersonal relations" would be a valuable subject for them.
And why did it take 16 people to write this piddly little story? They had enough manpower to write a long-form Sunday exposé. The only place this "story" belonged, if it belonged anywhere, was in The Daily with details and context aimed at the audience most familiar with Stanford\'s current offerings.
This little tempest points up one of my most grievous pet peeves. I have come to loathe the end of each semester in Columbia -- that\'s always the time when the J-School students polish off their semester-long projects and their professors point the way toward our office, where they attempt to get their little masterpieces published in the magazine. The price is right for the company bean-counters, but it\'s always more work than any story is worth to edit, rewrite, reinterview, rewrite, re-research, rewrite, re-edit ... ad nauseum.
Somebody must have been desperate to fill space that day.
Maybe it\'s just me -- reading the news is simply a busman\'s holiday anymore -- and everything I read gets filtered through my editor\'s mind, but this story essentially says nothing. Whoever edited this at the Chron did a pathetic job. Just two athletes and two professors quoted, and none of the four advisers who purportedly compiled the list. There are so many holes in this story, so many missing essential details that would give a more precise picture of what these courses are about ... but then we would have no story, right?
Interesting comments by the sociology professor -- was she offended because her class was perceived to be easy, or did she just not want the AD directing athletes to her class -- seems like "interpersonal relations" would be a valuable subject for them.
And why did it take 16 people to write this piddly little story? They had enough manpower to write a long-form Sunday exposé. The only place this "story" belonged, if it belonged anywhere, was in The Daily with details and context aimed at the audience most familiar with Stanford\'s current offerings.
This little tempest points up one of my most grievous pet peeves. I have come to loathe the end of each semester in Columbia -- that\'s always the time when the J-School students polish off their semester-long projects and their professors point the way toward our office, where they attempt to get their little masterpieces published in the magazine. The price is right for the company bean-counters, but it\'s always more work than any story is worth to edit, rewrite, reinterview, rewrite, re-research, rewrite, re-edit ... ad nauseum.
Somebody must have been desperate to fill space that day.
"To the press alone, checkered as it is with abuses, the world is indebted for all the triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression." ~ James Madison