2008 Woodie Awards
Warning: reporting facts may be hazardous to career
Jarrod Schmidt
Issue date: 4/27/06 Section: Sports
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Brace yourself because I have a big announcement to make. Are you ready? We, the community of Garden City, are not perfect. Shocked?
Are you serious?
You mean we should admit flaws? Should acknowledge our lapses in judgment? Of course we should. And we do.
However, not everyone thinks it is important, or for that matter, appropriate to paint the whole picture - the good and the bad. That is unfortunate.
Two weeks ago, James Adams, sports reporter, and I sat in the athletic office waiting for information about the Harlem Globetrotters. We were working under a tight deadline and had just a few hours to put the story together before the newspaper went to press. We got the information without any problem and just as we were leaving, a voice from behind us said, "Hey, you guys come into my office for a minute, we need to discuss something." We turned to see it was Vic Trilli, the athletic director. At that point, we didn't think much about it. We had talked to him throughout the day about the Globetrotters, so we assumed he had more to add. Wrong assumption.
The first thing Trilli said had nothing to do with the GOOD news story we were there to cover, rather he questioned why we were running a story about the head track coach's recent arrest. We were caught off-guard. I remember thinking, "Oh no, here we go again."
I thought about the confrontation the newspaper staff had with Trilli and Greg Greathouse last semester after an opinion piece about the soccer program appeared in the Silhouette.
Trilli's concerns this time were similar to his criticisms of us before. He questioned why we were pursuing "old news," a story that had already run in the Garden City Telegram. He pressed us, asking why the Silhouette would run a story that was going to put the "private life" of an individual out there for the public to criticize.
I tried explaining that readers of the Silhouette have a reasonable expectation that, as the college's newspaper, we will report what has happened. Several factors contributed to the editorial staff's decision to report the story. The incident involved an instructor/coach and a college student, who was also his son. The decision to report the story wasn't made hastily or without consideration.
Are you serious?
You mean we should admit flaws? Should acknowledge our lapses in judgment? Of course we should. And we do.
However, not everyone thinks it is important, or for that matter, appropriate to paint the whole picture - the good and the bad. That is unfortunate.
Two weeks ago, James Adams, sports reporter, and I sat in the athletic office waiting for information about the Harlem Globetrotters. We were working under a tight deadline and had just a few hours to put the story together before the newspaper went to press. We got the information without any problem and just as we were leaving, a voice from behind us said, "Hey, you guys come into my office for a minute, we need to discuss something." We turned to see it was Vic Trilli, the athletic director. At that point, we didn't think much about it. We had talked to him throughout the day about the Globetrotters, so we assumed he had more to add. Wrong assumption.
The first thing Trilli said had nothing to do with the GOOD news story we were there to cover, rather he questioned why we were running a story about the head track coach's recent arrest. We were caught off-guard. I remember thinking, "Oh no, here we go again."
I thought about the confrontation the newspaper staff had with Trilli and Greg Greathouse last semester after an opinion piece about the soccer program appeared in the Silhouette.
Trilli's concerns this time were similar to his criticisms of us before. He questioned why we were pursuing "old news," a story that had already run in the Garden City Telegram. He pressed us, asking why the Silhouette would run a story that was going to put the "private life" of an individual out there for the public to criticize.
I tried explaining that readers of the Silhouette have a reasonable expectation that, as the college's newspaper, we will report what has happened. Several factors contributed to the editorial staff's decision to report the story. The incident involved an instructor/coach and a college student, who was also his son. The decision to report the story wasn't made hastily or without consideration.
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