Editorials are a lot like a double edged sword for newspapers…

The reasoning behind this is yesterday I read an ANONYMOUS editorial in The Maneater that involved a subject I was affected in and quickly could tell that whoever wrote the article did not take the time to fact check or atleast look into what they were talking about.

HERE IS THE ARTICLE!

This editorial was tough to read because I was a Summer Welcome Leader in 2009. It just wasn’t true and didn’t take the time to figure out how diversity is relevant during SW.

The double edged sword label is that editorials gives news a chance to be portrayed by citizens on a more personal level. In a sense it allows everyone the opportunity to voice their freedom of speech as a journalist. However, it definitely has it’s problems.

In a website about “The 7 things you should know about citizen journalism…” it discusses some of the issues with editorials and citizen journalism.

“Citizen journalism reflects the contributions of those who choose to participate, and such projects can be havens for triviality or unreliable content. At the same time, many users are inclined to trust material they find online, particularly if it is called “news.” In this way, citizen journalism projects have the potential to implicitly validate content that might be inaccurate,offensive, or otherwise lack credibility.”

The newspaper also runs the chance of losing its credibility. Although this is the Maneater and just a student newspaper, they did a really good job in going out and finding the facts from New Student Programs Director David Reilly, as well as past SW leaders that had supporting statements that went against the editorial.

HERE IS THAT ARTICLE!

The article does exactly what any newspaper should do. It goes and gets the viewpoint of opposite side of the editorial to see the credibility in the citizen journalism.  In this case, it shows the lack there of. Now, that may not be the point of every article but this was just too good of an example for any citizen journalist to realize what they are talking about first before they try and point out someone or something and publish it. I understand some people can have different viewpoints, but that doesn’t represent the general public necessarily.

I would have liked to see the anonymous editorial writer at least own up to their opinion and try and talk to someone on the other side about Summer Welcome and the experience he or she didn’t get out of it or maybe missed out on and express the importance of what his/her editorial is about and get feedback from the people who are involved. Then write the article.

Thanks for reading….I have my package videos and will upload them today or tomorrow.