Pubdate: Mon, 20 Oct 2003
Source: Cavalier Daily (VA Edu)
Copyright: 2003 The Cavalier Daily, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.cavalierdaily.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/550
Author: Emily Kane

ON DRUG BUST COVERAGE AND CORRECTIONS

Emily Kane Cavalier Daily Ombudsman ONE OF the trickiest parts of reporting 
is assembling a bevy of information into an article that just plain makes 
sense.

The Cavalier Daily was confronted with this task in the past two weeks when 
University Police and local law enforcement officials laid out details to a 
drug bust that began to take place Thursday, Oct. 2. Gathering all of the 
facts in a bust that included the indictment of 33 people for alleged 
involvement in selling illegal narcotics can be a challenging undertaking, 
even when the police give their side of the story through a press 
conference. Reporters must follow up with many parties to substantiate 
facts and give a fair picture of what really happened.

The Cavalier Daily, with its initial coverage on "Operation Spring Break 
Down," did a good, thorough job in collecting information and presenting it 
in a clear, careful manner. The first article concerning the bust appeared 
Monday, Oct. 6, in the first paper printed after the police held a press 
conference the Friday prior describing the bust. There were many bits of 
information to present: Police issued indictments for 33 people, of which 
25 had ties to the University (three employees, seven former students and 
fifteen current students); throughout the investigation, the task force 
seized marijuana, cocaine, opium, ecstasy and psilocybin mushrooms; 
officials busted some suspects on the Corner and, for some other suspects, 
used the ruse of a secret society invitation to attract suspects to the 
Rotunda for arrest. (This disturbing fact was later criticized in a 
thoughtful Oct. 7 column on the bust by Alec Solotorovsky, who argued that 
the secret society ploy was "an elaborate prank that served little purpose 
except to humiliate the suspects at the time of their arrest.") Reporters 
compiled and presented the mass of information meticulously and followed up 
on that early outpouring of facts with articles concerning further 
information on the consequences faced by the suspects if convicted, as well 
as additional arrests and community reaction.

This is a good opportunity for the CD to illustrate what happens to 
students who are charged (these suspects have yet to be) with violating 
either standards two or ten of the Standards of Conduct set forth by the 
Board of Visitors and governed by the University Judiciary Committee. Often 
students are unaware of the power and processes of the UJC (and, though 
unrelated to these cases, the Honor Committee), and it would benefit the 
University community (especially those that are new here) for The Cavalier 
Daily to provide some more substantial illumination in this regard.

Correcting, concluding and doubling up

On the other side of the performance spectrum, readers discovered via a 
lengthy set of corrections on Thursday, Oct. 9, that some sloppy reporting 
had been done that week. The corrections have already been printed and it 
would serve little purpose to detail them again (hopefully, they'll be 
online soon), but I point them out as a simple reminder that fact 
collecting and presenting first and foremost must be accurate. Not all 
readers of the paper are daily readers, and many of them likely did not see 
the corrections as presented, so it is imperative that reporters get the 
facts right every time.

On Friday, Oct. 17, Opinion columnist Whitney Blake took on the Medical 
School's adoption of a pass-fail system and seemed to conclude that such a 
method of evaluation could lead to a surgeon panicking mid-procedure. 
Opposing a pass/fail grading system is not a position that is altogether 
controversial, but leaping to generalizations like Blake's surgeon example 
is a bit rash, especially when one considers the fact that the new 
pass/fail system is only for the first and second years of medical school. 
(Third years retain traditional grading, and fourth years take electives 
that have been evaluated traditionally as pass/fail.)

Also, an Oct. 6 piece in the Life section on personalized license plates 
seemed oddly familiar since Megan Peloquin had already written a column on 
the subject, which ran Sept. 17. Columns on occasion can lead to longer 
feature pieces, but this subject hardly merited double treatment, as 
there's not much more to say besides such-and-such person has this license 
plate because [insert reason here].

A final note

Due to the Reading Holidays, two weeks have passed since last this column 
appeared. The Cav Daily staff produced six issues since then. There were no 
papers published Friday, Oct. 10, through Wednesday, Oct. 15, though the 
University broke for only two days of classes. Putting out a paper for 
Wednesday would have required the staff's work on Tuesday, which was a day 
off, so it is understandable that, along with the rest of the University, 
the CD staff also took off Tuesday. Certainly, these hard working students 
deserved a respite as well, but not producing an issue for Friday stretched 
that break a bit much.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom