1. Philosophies and policies at the S&B

1.1. Audience and mission

Like almost all writing, journalism is written with the intention of being read. As a result, it needs to anticipate the expectations and possible reactions of its audience. The S&B, like most newspapers, seeks to bring as many people as possible into its audience: students, faculty, staff, town residents, prospective students, alums; readers who understand any given topic and readers who don't; readers who care about sports and readers who don't.

Perhaps most notably, the S&B's audience is small. In many cases, our readers already know the basic outline of our stories. This only reinforces the need for us to understand and respond to a recent major change in the newspaper industry: plurality of mission. In order to be useful to our various audiences, our stories have to do more than simply present facts. They should:

1) be an accurate source of facts, free of the distortions that arise from word-of-mouth repetition;
2) reinforce the bonds running through the college community by spreading information about public events and exposing people to opinions and experiences that they would not otherwise encounter;
3) uncover and discuss aspects of the college that have not yet been popularly examined, because they require time and energy to explore;
4) provide a synthesis of facts, placing events in a useful context and explaining complex issues for a broad audience;
5) present information in an accessible and entertaining manner; and
6) act as a record, describing important events in college life for future readers as well as current ones.

Even today, many newspapers only aim for the first, second, and sixth of these goals. In the face of 24-hour news from cable television and the internet, however, most papers have realized that the print medium simply can't distribute basic facts as efficiently as newer media can. They have therefore edged away from the old "inverted pyramid" style-placing the "most important" facts at the beginning of a story and arranging other facts in descending order of importance, right down to a whimper at the end-in favor of a looser concept of "storytelling." See section 2.5 for more on the structure of good stories.

At the S&B, all this is even more true. We don't even come out every day, let alone every hour, so our job is less to cover breaking news than to interpret and contextualize the raw facts that everybody's already heard. Writers and editors should remind themselves to balance all six of these responsibilities.

Different audiences are one of the variables that determine an article's voice. Writing a newspaper article is unlike writing an academic paper or a short story or a journal entry. Writing an article for the S&B is unlike writing an article for People or Harper's or the Des Moines Register or the New York Times. Writing a news article for the S&B is unlike writing a feature article for the S&B. All these different articles will be written in different voices.

The S&B publishes writing in five broad vocal categories:

Reportage. This style belongs in many arts, sports, and longer "news feature" stories as well as the front page. Don't let the name fool you: this isn't necessarily the kind of writing on the cover of your hometown paper. Again, the S&B should focus on contextualization and interpretation more than many papers. Still, this voice is objective, self-consciously balanced, and generally detached (you don't refer to yourself if you can help it, for example, and if you absolutely have to you do it in the third person). The priority here is accuracy.

Feature. This includes quirkier news stories and most sports and arts coverage. Some editors set aside a special section for it, which specializes in profiles and amusements. This voice should be accurate, and it should not be chatty (it should usually avoid the first and second person), but because the subject matter is usually somewhat less controversial, features can take more stylistic risks. Reportage is written because something has occurred; features are written because something is interesting. Some people have perverted this distinction into the idea that feature articles are somehow fluffy. That isn't true; they're just fancier, and they're certainly harder to write well. The New Yorker publishes very good feature stories. The priorities here are entertainment and enlightenment.

First-person. This voice is used for factual stories presented through the lens of a single person's experience. These stories should strive for accuracy, but because the writer is making his or her biases obvious, accounts can present somewhat more subjective interpretations of the facts. The priority here is communicating an experience.

Review. Reviews also present opinions, so they can use the first and second person. They're often amusing as well. In order to be useful to the audience, however, a review can't be about the reviewer: it should offer useful insights into the positive and negative features of its subject, whether that's a song, a movie, or a tennis shoe. Good reviews don't just tell people whether or not to buy something-they suggest useful ways to think about things. The priorities here, as with features, are entertainment and enlightenment.

Opinion. This is by far the most versatile voice, and almost all of it belongs in its own section. It includes editorials, columns, and letters to the editor (lettitors for short). This is also the only content in the S&B that's regularly provided by non-staff members, in the form of guest columns and lettitors. It can use "I" and "you" to its heart's content. It shouldn't be false, of course-that's called libel. But it can be opinionated and blatantly biased. It is often funny. Good opinion writing doesn't just take sides, though: everybody has opinions already. Opinion writers should approach issues in new and surprising ways which cannot be presented in more restrictive voices. The priority here is discourse.

The lines between these categories are not hard or fast: every story requires its own voice. But our readers need to trust us, and to do that they need to understand the relationship between our writers and their articles. This requires us to maintain consistent boundaries between the different ways we tell our stories.

Above all, everything in a newspaper must be true. Truth, unfortunately, is slippery. Every event seems different to each person who sees it, and even the most scrupulous reporter is only one of those people. This has several implications: reporters have to talk to lots of people in order to gain a relatively accurate picture of an event; even with lots of perspectives, the truth is sometimes uncertain; and, sometimes, that the best way to tell a story isn't just to describe the facts that everybody can agree on.

On most occasions, the S&B editors don't have time to check facts as a magazine editor would. Therefore that has to occur at the writing level. Never write a full-length story based entirely on a single person's testimony. Before describing events involving multiple people, get at least two perspectives whenever possible. With anything identifiably controversial, find at least three sources and do not stop there if there is anyone else to talk to. If you need help, ask your editor for support from an editor or another writer.

No matter how many people a reporter talks to, there will often come a point where a series of quotes will not capture the situation with sufficient clarity or accuracy. The reporter needs to do some digesting on his or her own. This is a dangerous task, because it requires decision-making. But it has to be done. A reporter should not hide behind the journalistic ideal of objectivity in order to avoid drawing a necessary conclusion about truth. Once you are confident in your knowledge of a topic-and you should be by the time you finish an article-don't pretend that any argument is stronger or weaker than you actually think it is. If an administrator doesn't have the right facts about her office's budget, don't be afraid to say so.

Sometimes an accurate story will appear to some people to be "taking sides" in a debate. Because reporters should be rigorously careful about every statement they make, and especially ones that could have "partisan" implications, this shouldn't happen very often, and when it does, stories should be solidly researched enough to resist criticism. But everyone seldom agrees about anything, so sometimes people will object to stories. The point is: write every story as honestly and thoroughly as possible and let people complain on their own time, after it's in print.

1.4. Trouble

How to avoid trouble: incest and independence

You will not be able to write with sufficient detachment from your sources' feelings if you are, say, their roommate. Never write or edit an article in which you have an interest. That's journalistic incest and it includes membership in an organization, employment at a business or in an office, and friendship with subjects or sources. In a community as small as Grinnell's, avoiding incest is not easy. If it's absolutely necessary, ask an editor to find another reporter to interview your friend for your story. Hopefully, though, you wouldn't have taken that story in the first place.

One area where incest can become especially dangerous is the S&B's coverage of itself and the people in it. The S&B is an important part of the campus community and should be subject to scrutiny itself, as should the people in it. But it's very hard to write objectively about one's co-workers, and if they are also part of the editing process, it's just about impossible. For this reason, not only should writers never write about groups they're in or people they are friends with, editors should not edit stories that discuss them in any way. If a story is actually about the S&B, staffers should try to import a guest writer to cover the piece. In all of these cases, it can be very helpful to find a mutually respected outsider, such as a professor, to go over the story before it goes to press.

Another common source of pre-print pressure on writers comes from sources who want to review an article before it goes to press. Unless it is absolutely the only way to get a crucial story, never show a story to a source. Even in extreme situations, editors must make the decision to show anything to a source. Here is the order of procedure:

1) initially refuse requests to see any part of a story;
2) if a source insists, tell the source that he or she will have to speak to your editor;
3) as an editor, if contacted, consider offering to show the source his or her own quotations;
4) as an editor, under the most extreme circumstances, consider offering to show a source a story, asking them only to address inaccuracies (not content).

All these precautions are necessary because knowing that a story will be read by a source will color the writing of that story. It is the S&B's job to be accurate all the time, and granting some sources unbalanced access to our writing process not only threatens our objectivity but implies that we are incapable of self-supervision. Most sources are willing to accept this standard when it is explained to them.

Whomever an article may offend, writers should not be directly involved in the critique process, even after the article goes to press. People with complaints should be directed to the editor-in-chief and should perhaps express themselves in published letters to the editor. In most cases, this counterpoint is sufficient; in the case of personal attack, however, or blatant falsehood on the part of the lettitor-writer, the reporter has the right to a personal response, published alongside the lettitor in question, after notifying the lettitor-writer.

If it is determined an article contains factual errors, a correction should be published as soon as possible, with a note of regret for the error.

In particularly ugly situations, it may be necessary to seek outside mediation. The Student Publications and Radio Committee (SPARC) adjudicates complaints from media employees as well as members of the Grinnell community at large. SPARC's administrative advisor should be familiar with the legal responsibilities of the S&B.

Essentially, the S&B, as an institution, should shoulder responsibility for any errors or mistakes. Accuracy in S&B articles is the duty of the entire staff, not any single writer.

Remaining detached from the people in one's story does not mean remaining unaware, or unconcerned, about the effects of one's story. All media are responsible for the effects of their actions, and S&B staffers should always weigh the benefits of publishing information against the risk that publication will damage people's lives. There are no easy rules for such decisions, but here are a few suggestions:

1) Avoid quoting sources anonymously. From the safety of anonymity, sources are more likely to say the forbidden, but they are also more likely to say the inaccurate, because they're shielded from the consequences of untruth. Anonymity also stifles discourse by withholding information from our readers about our sources' natural biases and assumptions. Grinnell's self-governance policy calls on community members to take ownership for their words and actions, and we should ask our sources to do the same. Anonymous quotes should not be accepted unless a reliable source has very important information and is absolutely unwilling to release it with attribution.

2) If anonymity is necessary, negotiate for the most accurate possible description of the source's relation to the topic at hand: a long-time Spanish professor may be more useful than a Spanish professor. Anonymous quotes should be approved by your editor.

3) Respect "off-the-record" information. If a source tells you something "off the record," or without being aware that you are acting in your role as a reporter, you cannot publish it, as a quote or otherwise. You can use off-the-record information to secure on-the-record information, however, either from the same source or a different one: when you're formulating a question to ask your source, there's no need to pretend that you don't know something that you do.

4) Do not publish the names of the victims of violent crimes without their permission.

5) Do not refer to anyone accused of a crime as guilty of a crime. At most, the defendant in a rape case-or a possible defendant in a possible rape case-is an "alleged" rapist.