To print, or not to print?

This week was an interesting one in terms of student journalism.  What happens on a college campus when crimes hit close to home?

These stories were so far beyond the usual spectrum of the “tuition is going to increase again, surprise!” or “search for new president in the works…again” stories we’ve covered in the past.  We didn’t know how to handle situations more commonly present in real-world journalism and we were hit with a few striking realizations that only happen in that real world.

Were we ethical?  Yes, I think so.  Some might argue our final decisions, but that is not uncommon when there are so many opinions available.

I think the most valuable thing about this week was that we, as a staff, were forced to fully think through things and make decisions as a staff, completely looking at each side of the issue.  Usually, we get stuck in autopilot and just kind of go with the flow, deciding whether a story about salad bars is more important than one about a club winning an award.

When real news happened, we were forced to step back and re-evaluate every step we made, knowing it was going to be criticized from every angle.

Also, a fun side note is that many of the commenters said things like “no one reads this anyway”…unfortunately for them our readership skyrocketed with our coverage.

Anyways, this storm has passed though I’m sure more will come in the future.  At least we didn’t get busted like the kids at Georgetown…