Some of us within the news organization I work for and a sister organization nearby (both owned by Lee) have been talking about how we’d remake our news products and news-gathering.
One of the things that has come up, though not with any kind of serious consideration yet, is the impact that a land-grant university’s news machine has on a small-town newsroom.
The Gazette-Times is in Corvallis, OR, population 49,807. We’re also the home of Oregon State University, home to 21, 969 students and 2,918 faculty.
That means that just a few blocks from our newsroom is another team of communicators in News and Communication Services working 40 hours each per week to promote the university and its mission. Their OSU Web page lists as many full-time staff as we have reporters.
One of our former reporters who is now working for OSU send a tweet today that spurred some thinking (and this off-the-cuff post): the university is using Skype to connect news organizations with faculty experts. Cool idea.
But the bigger question here is how we as a tiny newsroom should cover the university. Is anyone looking to us to break stories about research breakthroughs in our town? We already cover the hell out of athletics, but can only pick and choose about the rest of the work happening on campus.
I’ve been starting to think that we use the well-crafted science reporting directly from the university. Build a science page in the paper and link to news releases online.
Obviously, the news and communications crew has a pro-university slant that they’re working with the marketing department to put forward. Why is that so tough to swallow when it comes to news about research, but we readily gulp it down when it comes to athletics?
I’m not saying that we stop covering budget impacts, town and gown issues and on-campus enterprise reporting. I’m suggesting we emphasize that over the half-hearted (and often half-understood) science churnalism that we’re often reduced to.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Leave them in the comments.
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