[Vision2020] students away from home

Thu Dec 2 07:24:36 PST 2010

Saundra writes:

"I challenge the Daily News to - for 365 days - provide the same number, based on enrollments numbers, of human interest stories about schools other than NSA & Logos as they provide for those two schools.  How about it, Daily News - are you up for the challenge? "

The amount of news coverage ought reflect the size of the enrollment in the institutions.  It's hard to believe that a school with an enrollment of less than 200 with generates as much news of importance as one of 18,000 with far more diverse activities going on.

The relationship between the local print media and the tentacles of the Christ Church Cult is cozy to the point of almost being yellow journalism.  I wonder how much of the text of the articles about them is actually written by Bobby Horrendous of the cult.

As for readership, the print media needs to recognize that the influence and size of the cult is on the wane in this area, and for good reasons.  

Good business sense should dictate more balanced coverage [and more news, less fluff (read : lint)] to avoid alienating readers and thus losing readership.  

I have also noticed that the fluff pieces not only on the cult but on several persons and organizations contain quotes obviously not subjected to fact checking since they are patently false.  [For example, a person interviewed claimed that grey wolves weigh 150 - 160 pounds.  Fact:  on the average their weight is half that.]  The newspaper ought to learn the difference between fact and fantasy so that its readers are not misled on hot button and other issues.  Fact checking takes work.  As previously noted here, David Johnson, the reporter who interviewed the delusional wolf foe, seems to eschew such duties just as he did on the Postcardgate articles under his byline.

The community deserves better.  If it doesn't get it, then the business consequences and financial outlook for the local print media will not be rosy.

Wayne A. Fox
1009 Karen Lane
PO Box 9421
Moscow, ID  83843

waf at moscow.com
208 882-7975

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Saundra Lund 
  To: 'keely emerinemix' ; vision2020 at moscow.com 
  Cc: alford at dnews.com ; lrozen at dnews.com 
  Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2010 11:11 PM
  Subject: Re: [Vision2020] students away from home

  A belated Happy Thanksgiving to all!

  I apologize for the delay in responding, but things got away from me with the holiday, and I didn't want to let this pass without thanking Keely for her thoughtful post.  I think she makes excellent points.

  One of the enduring criticisms I've heard about the Daily News over the last several years is the disproportionate number of "fluff" (or human interest) stories about NSA & Logos compared to other local educational institutions when looking at enrollment.  Other area schools have great things going on & inspiring students as well, something readers of the Daily News wouldn't have much - if any - idea about.  Indeed, this clear preference is one of the reasons a lot of folks have given up on the Daily News providing unbiased coverage.

  Personally, I find the clear preference for NSA & Logos fluff stories - although not the individual human subjects themselves, of course -- repulsive.  Perhaps it's as you imply - that NSA, and Logos, presumably - simply excel at shameless self-promotion.  Nonetheless, it's the job of real journalists to do a decent job getting the stories when "government" and other local school teachers & administrators are focused on providing quality educations rather than on finding time for shameless self-promotion.  Human interest stories shouldn't be limited to what shows up on someone's desk virtually written for the reporter; at least, that's not the way a real newspaper operates.

  I challenge the Daily News to - for 365 days - provide the same number, based on enrollments numbers, of human interest stories about schools other than NSA & Logos as they provide for those two schools.  How about it, Daily News - are you up for the challenge?  You might actually find your subscriber numbers increase if you paid the same attention to students at the other local schools as you give to the two local schools that excel at nothing so much as shameless self-promotion.

  Saundra Lund

  Moscow, ID

  The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.

  ~ Edmund Burke

  ***** Original material contained herein is Copyright 2010 through life plus 70 years, Saundra Lund.  Do not copy, forward, excerpt, or reproduce outside the Vision 2020 forum without the express written permission of the author.*****

  From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com] On Behalf Of keely emerinemix
  Sent: Thursday, November 25, 2010 12:26 PM
  To: vision2020 at moscow.com
  Subject: [Vision2020] students away from home

  Good morning and Happy Thanksgiving, Visionaires --

  I wonder if anyone else noticed a particular story in this morning's Daily News, which, as most of you know, is what the Alford family has decided will pass for print journalism on the Palouse but which once again has proved to be nothing more than a shill -- a flack, a PR job, a booster -- for New St. Andrews and all things Kirk-related.  If you think the D-N does a great job covering news from Latah and Whitman counties, you might be offended if you read further.  If, on the other hand, you recall ever having read a real newspaper, and kind of thought newspapers were a good thing, you might share my dismay.

  I'm referring to a top-of-the-page spread reporting on the scintillating Thanksgiving holiday plans of two NSA students -- one from Texas, the other from Toronto -- who might have dinner today at Roy Atwood's place and then, you know, like, hang out and have a snowball fight and do some studying.  This gripping account of two nice, if somewhat bland, young men, neither of whose stories demonstrated any particular angle or interest except for the fact that they could free up time for an interview, covered a good 12 column inches and included fascinating revelations about how people from Texas and people from Toronto have different past experiences with snowfall.  Now, I want to be fair here -- perhaps the reporter was going for a lighthearted piece on "Thanksgiving Plans Of People From Places That Begin With The Letter 'T'," but I'd have to then point out, in the interest of consistency, that Texas is the state and Toronto is the city, and so Texas and Ontario are the parallels, and they begin with different letters, and so there goes the angle of the story . . . which kind of begs the question, then, of the news-feature value of the Thanksgiving plans of two out-of-state guys at a small college with a demographic that's remarkably, and purposely, similar in every respect.  Of course NSA might be the home of someone with a newsworthy or even feature-worthy holiday story, but in this case, it seems that simply being a St. Andy's guy in November was all that was required.  

  The editors of the Daily News, dazzled as they are by our local Oxford Donnabees and their students' perspicacious views on snowfall and studying, might have forgotten that there is in Moscow another college -- a university, in fact -- that has nearly 40 times the number of students, many of whom are not upper-middle-class conservative, white, Christian Americans, and some of whom likely have really newsworthy Thanksgiving plans, even if they're not learning Latin.  I can't help but wonder if the away-from-home experiences of someone from Ghana or Guatemala, Poland or Papua New Guinea, might be at least as gripping, perhaps even as educational, as those of our Texas and Ontario students.  I wonder if, in a university community of eight or ten thousand students, there might be someone conquering enormous hardship during the holidays, or spending his or her week off rescuing endangered sea turtles, distributing AIDS medicines to the poor, or organizing a food drive for prisoners' families.  I'd even bet that there are folks in our community who open their homes to all sorts of different people for Thanksgiving dinner -- maybe even people they don't know, but who, as is always the case in university towns, are away from home for the holidays and need a place to feel welcomed.  There are a lot of interesting, uplifting, edifying feature stories available to newspaper reporters during the holiday season; I know because I've written quite a few myself.  But there's something terribly skewed when a local newspaper blithely skips over the rich fields of genuinely news- or feature-worthy stories and instead consistently runs straight over to the least-likely-to-be-significant and far-less-relevant arena of carefully groomed, judiciously packaged, and energetically promoted "movement" that is New St. Andrews.  I hope the two young men interviewed have a great Thanksgiving, but my hoping so is about as newsworthy as is the description of their plans for the day -- or mine.

  I don't fault NSA for heartily promoting itself.  It's a disgrace, though, that its efforts are augmented so readily by a local institution that ought to exist to promote something else entirely:  The responsible, unbiased, and robust reporting of NEWS, not NSA.  

  Keely
  www.keely-prevailingwinds.com

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  =======================================================
   List services made available by First Step Internet, 
   serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.   
                 http://www.fsr.net                       
            mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
  =======================================================

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

=======================================================
 List services made available by First Step Internet, 
 serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.   
               http://www.fsr.net                       
          mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
======================================================= 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Saundra writes:

"I challenge the Daily News to - for 365 days - provide the same number, based on enrollments numbers, of human interest stories about schools other than NSA & Logos as they provide for those two schools.  How about it, Daily News - are you up for the challenge? "

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Saundra Lund 
  To: 'keely emerinemix' ; vision2020 at moscow.com 
  Cc: alford at dnews.com ; lrozen at dnews.com 
  Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2010 11:11 PM
  Subject: Re: [Vision2020] students away from home

  A belated Happy Thanksgiving to all!

  I apologize for the delay in responding, but things got away from me with the holiday, and I didn't want to let this pass without thanking Keely for her thoughtful post.  I think she makes excellent points.

  One of the enduring criticisms I've heard about the Daily News over the last several years is the disproportionate number of "fluff" (or human interest) stories about NSA & Logos compared to other local educational institutions when looking at enrollment.  Other area schools have great things going on & inspiring students as well, something readers of the Daily News wouldn't have much - if any - idea about.  Indeed, this clear preference is one of the reasons a lot of folks have given up on the Daily News providing unbiased coverage.

  Personally, I find the clear preference for NSA & Logos fluff stories - although not the individual human subjects themselves, of course -- repulsive.  Perhaps it's as you imply - that NSA, and Logos, presumably - simply excel at shameless self-promotion.  Nonetheless, it's the job of real journalists to do a decent job getting the stories when "government" and other local school teachers & administrators are focused on providing quality educations rather than on finding time for shameless self-promotion.  Human interest stories shouldn't be limited to what shows up on someone's desk virtually written for the reporter; at least, that's not the way a real newspaper operates.

  I challenge the Daily News to - for 365 days - provide the same number, based on enrollments numbers, of human interest stories about schools other than NSA & Logos as they provide for those two schools.  How about it, Daily News - are you up for the challenge?  You might actually find your subscriber numbers increase if you paid the same attention to students at the other local schools as you give to the two local schools that excel at nothing so much as shameless self-promotion.

  Saundra Lund

  Moscow, ID

  The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.

  ~ Edmund Burke

  ***** Original material contained herein is Copyright 2010 through life plus 70 years, Saundra Lund.  Do not copy, forward, excerpt, or reproduce outside the Vision 2020 forum without the express written permission of the author.*****

  From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com] On Behalf Of keely emerinemix
  Sent: Thursday, November 25, 2010 12:26 PM
  To: vision2020 at moscow.com
  Subject: [Vision2020] students away from home

  Good morning and Happy Thanksgiving, Visionaires --

  I wonder if anyone else noticed a particular story in this morning's Daily News, which, as most of you know, is what the Alford family has decided will pass for print journalism on the Palouse but which once again has proved to be nothing more than a shill -- a flack, a PR job, a booster -- for New St. Andrews and all things Kirk-related.  If you think the D-N does a great job covering news from Latah and Whitman counties, you might be offended if you read further.  If, on the other hand, you recall ever having read a real newspaper, and kind of thought newspapers were a good thing, you might share my dismay.

  I'm referring to a top-of-the-page spread reporting on the scintillating Thanksgiving holiday plans of two NSA students -- one from Texas, the other from Toronto -- who might have dinner today at Roy Atwood's place and then, you know, like, hang out and have a snowball fight and do some studying.  This gripping account of two nice, if somewhat bland, young men, neither of whose stories demonstrated any particular angle or interest except for the fact that they could free up time for an interview, covered a good 12 column inches and included fascinating revelations about how people from Texas and people from Toronto have different past experiences with snowfall.  Now, I want to be fair here -- perhaps the reporter was going for a lighthearted piece on "Thanksgiving Plans Of People From Places That Begin With The Letter 'T'," but I'd have to then point out, in the interest of consistency, that Texas is the state and Toronto is the city, and so Texas and Ontario are the parallels, and they begin with different letters, and so there goes the angle of the story . . . which kind of begs the question, then, of the news-feature value of the Thanksgiving plans of two out-of-state guys at a small college with a demographic that's remarkably, and purposely, similar in every respect.  Of course NSA might be the home of someone with a newsworthy or even feature-worthy holiday story, but in this case, it seems that simply being a St. Andy's guy in November was all that was required.  

  The editors of the Daily News, dazzled as they are by our local Oxford Donnabees and their students' perspicacious views on snowfall and studying, might have forgotten that there is in Moscow another college -- a university, in fact -- that has nearly 40 times the number of students, many of whom are not upper-middle-class conservative, white, Christian Americans, and some of whom likely have really newsworthy Thanksgiving plans, even if they're not learning Latin.  I can't help but wonder if the away-from-home experiences of someone from Ghana or Guatemala, Poland or Papua New Guinea, might be at least as gripping, perhaps even as educational, as those of our Texas and Ontario students.  I wonder if, in a university community of eight or ten thousand students, there might be someone conquering enormous hardship during the holidays, or spending his or her week off rescuing endangered sea turtles, distributing AIDS medicines to the poor, or organizing a food drive for prisoners' families.  I'd even bet that there are folks in our community who open their homes to all sorts of different people for Thanksgiving dinner -- maybe even people they don't know, but who, as is always the case in university towns, are away from home for the holidays and need a place to feel welcomed.  There are a lot of interesting, uplifting, edifying feature stories available to newspaper reporters during the holiday season; I know because I've written quite a few myself.  But there's something terribly skewed when a local newspaper blithely skips over the rich fields of genuinely news- or feature-worthy stories and instead consistently runs straight over to the least-likely-to-be-significant and far-less-relevant arena of carefully groomed, judiciously packaged, and energetically promoted "movement" that is New St. Andrews.  I hope the two young men interviewed have a great Thanksgiving, but my hoping so is about as newsworthy as is the description of their plans for the day -- or mine.

  I don't fault NSA for heartily promoting itself.  It's a disgrace, though, that its efforts are augmented so readily by a local institution that ought to exist to promote something else entirely:  The responsible, unbiased, and robust reporting of NEWS, not NSA.  

  Keely
  www.keely-prevailingwinds.com

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  =======================================================
   List services made available by First Step Internet, 
   serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.   
                 http://www.fsr.net                       
            mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
  =======================================================

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Saundra writes:

"I challenge the Daily News to - for 365 days - provide the same number, based on enrollments numbers, of human interest stories about schools other than NSA & Logos as they provide for those two schools.  How about it, Daily News - are you up for the challenge? "

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Saundra Lund 
  To: 'keely emerinemix' ; vision2020 at moscow.com 
  Cc: alford at dnews.com ; lrozen at dnews.com 
  Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2010 11:11 PM
  Subject: Re: [Vision2020] students away from home

  A belated Happy Thanksgiving to all!

  I apologize for the delay in responding, but things got away from me with the holiday, and I didn't want to let this pass without thanking Keely for her thoughtful post.  I think she makes excellent points.

  One of the enduring criticisms I've heard about the Daily News over the last several years is the disproportionate number of "fluff" (or human interest) stories about NSA & Logos compared to other local educational institutions when looking at enrollment.  Other area schools have great things going on & inspiring students as well, something readers of the Daily News wouldn't have much - if any - idea about.  Indeed, this clear preference is one of the reasons a lot of folks have given up on the Daily News providing unbiased coverage.

  Personally, I find the clear preference for NSA & Logos fluff stories - although not the individual human subjects themselves, of course -- repulsive.  Perhaps it's as you imply - that NSA, and Logos, presumably - simply excel at shameless self-promotion.  Nonetheless, it's the job of real journalists to do a decent job getting the stories when "government" and other local school teachers & administrators are focused on providing quality educations rather than on finding time for shameless self-promotion.  Human interest stories shouldn't be limited to what shows up on someone's desk virtually written for the reporter; at least, that's not the way a real newspaper operates.

  I challenge the Daily News to - for 365 days - provide the same number, based on enrollments numbers, of human interest stories about schools other than NSA & Logos as they provide for those two schools.  How about it, Daily News - are you up for the challenge?  You might actually find your subscriber numbers increase if you paid the same attention to students at the other local schools as you give to the two local schools that excel at nothing so much as shameless self-promotion.

  Saundra Lund

  Moscow, ID

  The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.

  ~ Edmund Burke

  ***** Original material contained herein is Copyright 2010 through life plus 70 years, Saundra Lund.  Do not copy, forward, excerpt, or reproduce outside the Vision 2020 forum without the express written permission of the author.*****

  From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com] On Behalf Of keely emerinemix
  Sent: Thursday, November 25, 2010 12:26 PM
  To: vision2020 at moscow.com
  Subject: [Vision2020] students away from home

  Good morning and Happy Thanksgiving, Visionaires --

  I wonder if anyone else noticed a particular story in this morning's Daily News, which, as most of you know, is what the Alford family has decided will pass for print journalism on the Palouse but which once again has proved to be nothing more than a shill -- a flack, a PR job, a booster -- for New St. Andrews and all things Kirk-related.  If you think the D-N does a great job covering news from Latah and Whitman counties, you might be offended if you read further.  If, on the other hand, you recall ever having read a real newspaper, and kind of thought newspapers were a good thing, you might share my dismay.

  I'm referring to a top-of-the-page spread reporting on the scintillating Thanksgiving holiday plans of two NSA students -- one from Texas, the other from Toronto -- who might have dinner today at Roy Atwood's place and then, you know, like, hang out and have a snowball fight and do some studying.  This gripping account of two nice, if somewhat bland, young men, neither of whose stories demonstrated any particular angle or interest except for the fact that they could free up time for an interview, covered a good 12 column inches and included fascinating revelations about how people from Texas and people from Toronto have different past experiences with snowfall.  Now, I want to be fair here -- perhaps the reporter was going for a lighthearted piece on "Thanksgiving Plans Of People From Places That Begin With The Letter 'T'," but I'd have to then point out, in the interest of consistency, that Texas is the state and Toronto is the city, and so Texas and Ontario are the parallels, and they begin with different letters, and so there goes the angle of the story . . . which kind of begs the question, then, of the news-feature value of the Thanksgiving plans of two out-of-state guys at a small college with a demographic that's remarkably, and purposely, similar in every respect.  Of course NSA might be the home of someone with a newsworthy or even feature-worthy holiday story, but in this case, it seems that simply being a St. Andy's guy in November was all that was required.  

  The editors of the Daily News, dazzled as they are by our local Oxford Donnabees and their students' perspicacious views on snowfall and studying, might have forgotten that there is in Moscow another college -- a university, in fact -- that has nearly 40 times the number of students, many of whom are not upper-middle-class conservative, white, Christian Americans, and some of whom likely have really newsworthy Thanksgiving plans, even if they're not learning Latin.  I can't help but wonder if the away-from-home experiences of someone from Ghana or Guatemala, Poland or Papua New Guinea, might be at least as gripping, perhaps even as educational, as those of our Texas and Ontario students.  I wonder if, in a university community of eight or ten thousand students, there might be someone conquering enormous hardship during the holidays, or spending his or her week off rescuing endangered sea turtles, distributing AIDS medicines to the poor, or organizing a food drive for prisoners' families.  I'd even bet that there are folks in our community who open their homes to all sorts of different people for Thanksgiving dinner -- maybe even people they don't know, but who, as is always the case in university towns, are away from home for the holidays and need a place to feel welcomed.  There are a lot of interesting, uplifting, edifying feature stories available to newspaper reporters during the holiday season; I know because I've written quite a few myself.  But there's something terribly skewed when a local newspaper blithely skips over the rich fields of genuinely news- or feature-worthy stories and instead consistently runs straight over to the least-likely-to-be-significant and far-less-relevant arena of carefully groomed, judiciously packaged, and energetically promoted "movement" that is New St. Andrews.  I hope the two young men interviewed have a great Thanksgiving, but my hoping so is about as newsworthy as is the description of their plans for the day -- or mine.

  I don't fault NSA for heartily promoting itself.  It's a disgrace, though, that its efforts are augmented so readily by a local institution that ought to exist to promote something else entirely:  The responsible, unbiased, and robust reporting of NEWS, not NSA.  

  Keely
  www.keely-prevailingwinds.com

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  =======================================================
   List services made available by First Step Internet, 
   serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.   
                 http://www.fsr.net                       
            mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
  =======================================================
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