Jason Heymann’s letter to the editor yesterday criticized an article about his a capella group, Thunk, in last week’s PLAY because he felt it decontextualized quotations and shed a negative light on the group.
Although a few factual mistakes were made in the article, for which I have apologized privately to the group and do so again publicly here, the main contention of this and other letters I received from disgruntled group members seemed to find most fault with our general portrayal of Thunk.
The phrase in Heymann’s article that highlights this also underlines a larger, common misunderstanding and the problems that can stem from it: “Thunk invited the reporter to a rehearsal expecting that a positive portrayal of the group was to be constructed.”
I fear this expectation stems from an inherent misunderstanding, which many people who deal with The Daily and especially PLAY share. We are not here to make you look good. That’s what PR people — not journalists — do. And I hope that we don’t need to remind you that we are journalists, because we take that word and all it implies very seriously.
That being said I will be the first to admit that we are in many ways still journalists-in-training. I fear few people stop to consider how difficult a job this sometimes can be. A journalist is often expected to write on a subject they initially know almost nothing about and is expected to research it well enough to speak intelligently with the top members of the field. A journalist must take intricate, fast, readable notes on both their own observations and the words of multiple people (sometimes speaking simultaneously). And the journalist finally must combine all this into something coherent, interesting, even-handed and informative for an audience that, in our case, ranges from freshmen to Evanston City Council members to university administrators.
We work almost endlessly to help each and every Daily writer hone each of these skills, but the unavoidable truth of the matter is that sometimes mistakes will be made. And more often that not, what we deem newsworthy, important or even interesting about a story will not exactly match the desires of the group covered.
So from one journalist-in-training to all you PR people-in-training, I have a few suggestions. After all, many of you who deal with Daily reporters will go on to deal with Chicago Tribune and New York Times reporters and should consider honing your own strategy for dealing with them before you do.
The first, most important rule of thumb is, if you don’t want it printed, don’t say or don’t do it. There are obviously laws and guidelines that qualify this statement, but by and large if it happens, we have a right (and some would say responsibility) to print it.
Second, sometimes bringing a reporter into your inner circle and treating them like a long-lost friend is not the best idea. I don’t want to deter anyone from speaking to or being open with any reporter, but since they can’t possibly have been privy to all the inside jokes and intricate personal interactions you have, chances are that something is going to get misconstrued or come off differently than you meant it.
Finally, try to be slightly more understanding when things do go awry. We welcome and appreciate your critiques, but often these “critiques” take the form of personal attacks. These are misguided because any story we publish has gone through at least one writer and two editors. And in my three years working for The Daily, I have not once seen any staff member intentionally, let alone maliciously, misrepresent a story.
It hurts us as much as, and sometimes more than, it does the subjects of an article when they are dissatisfied, so please help us all work together to diminish such occurrences.
Play Editor Miki Johnson is a Medill senior. She can be reached at [email protected].
