That's all right, Mario. Glenn and Ray aren't newspersons either. But
everybody is entitled to express himself.
For those of you who are curious about how news stories like this one
are built, I'll toss out a few notes.
At the meeting I covered, Councilwoman Blackwell spoke voluminously for
at least 40 min. It is amusing to read an amateur who has convinced
himself he has perfect recall of every word she uttered, to the exact
syllable, so much so that he can testify what words *weren't *said. No
working reporter would make that claim, working off notes alone. His
editor would bust him if he did.
I cover the Councilwoman regularly (just got off a job with her in
Malcolm X Park one hour ago, in fact). If I misquote her banefully, I
can guarantee I'll hear from her directly in my office the next day! My
employer couldn't care less what the peanut gallery says.
A news writer's primary job is to write: to boil down the gist of events
in his own language, accurately and honestly. He should derive his input
from other people's thoughts, not his own wishes ... to a point. But
when a writer knows his beat pretty well (i.e., he has listened to
hundreds or thousands of other people's information on it), he is paid
to use his own judgement to summarize a situation. In other words, no, I
don't have to write: "'The sun rises in the east,' a wall plaque in the
Franklin Institute's astronomy exhibit alleged." I can report it as an
unattributed fact (not personal opinion), because I know the sun that
well. It does rise in the east, Ray.
The article was inspired by the incident of the First Thursday meeting,
but I did not limit my research to fact-gathering at that meeting. It is
not important whether the writer learned something at that meeting or at
another time, if it tells the story rightly. The story was the conflict
between UCD and Blackwell, which was not limited to that meeting.
News writers use press releases regularly, especially when they want to
make sure they get the official text of a statement into the record. PR
is written in large part to aid them in that mission.
News writers always leave stuff out. Ours is a commercial artform and
art is always about what you cut out, and why.
-- Tony West
