First Stories for Pub I Students Assigned, Not Chosen

Although many aspects of the Publications class have remained the same over the years, others have evolved. Steve Mark, the currently-on-sabbatical-but-normally-in-charge professor of the course had a habit of tweaking at the edges of the course from semester to semester. He tried to identify hangups in the process to smooth things out for the future. Some experiments worked, and some didn't.

One experiment changed the proposal process. During my tenure as a student, everyone was allowed from at the beginning to put together story proposals. Pub I students were not required to do it for the first issue, but were encouraged to try. After the editors approved (or denied) proposals, they were all collected on a spreadsheet that contained the story slugs and the names of reporters, if any, who had volunteered to write them. Unassigned stories were marked NYA (not yet assigned). We would then give students a chance in class to pick up the stories they wanted to cover. We would highlight a few as important, and attempt to coax students to take one of those. Eventually, everyone would have to pick something.

Steve told me before he left for India that he had changed part of that policy for the first issue of the paper. Pub I students no longer have a choice about what they write; instead, they are assigned a story.

I saw this new paradigm in action Wednesday. Interim professor Karyn Smith told the Pub I students she was going to go down the list in alphabetical order and assign stories. A few groans issued from the crowd. One student sitting near me was watching the list inevitably draw closer to her name, whispering to herself, “Not that one....”

Both Editor-in-Chief Dave Weidenfeller and I spoke up in favor of the policy, cutting off the protest before it could mount.

“This is how it works in a real newsroom,” I pointed out.

When Steve had told me about the change, he had said it eliminated some of the confusion of trying to push students to pick up stories they might not know about or might not enjoy. It meant there would be more news coverage of the college, and fewer stories about Beyoncé. And it shifted lessons about proposing stories to the second issue, thus mitigating the deluge of basic journalism lessons that needed to be given in the opening weeks.

But what may be more important about the change is that it more accurately reflects the real world. Although professional reporters do propose their own stories, they are also regularly assigned to cover stories. The news is only half self-direction. The rest involves being led by the events of the day, which are rarely under the control of the reporter.

Being assigned a story also means being forced to get out of your comfort zone and pursue ideas and people you might not otherwise have encountered. That's the crux of education in general.

Pub I students are receiving a task they may not like but will serve them well. They'll still get the chance to propose and volunteer for stories on the next round. By then, they will be more knowledgeable and more prepared to contribute to the overall mission of Horizons.