Today's paper had awesome content. There was impact in the stories, almost every story had a good lead. Just, wow. I'm so impressed with today's paper that I'm going to link to the whole damn website (today's PDF isn't up for some reason).
Boom.
Great job. You know what, here is some more praise:
PRAISE
Sean Lawson's story about the gender gap of high level employees was great journalism. There are less women in power than men at OU. This statistic alone could have enormous impact on the way the campus is run. Furthermore, it puts OU on a hot seat because they haven't figured out how to maintain diversity at the higher levels when applicant pools are dwindling. Now for the next step: How much are these women being paid compared to the men? Remember, we do journalism not to be entertaining, but to make sure people have the information they need to be free and self-governing. Showing readers this part of OU is important.
(Interesting note here: Applicant pools are dwindling but more people are looking for jobs. This prompts a question: Why isn't the applicant pool increasing when all we hear about is how we need more jobs? Shouldn't people be lining up? I don't think because the job is tough right now -- as Mergler said -- is really the reason. It's something to think about.)
Chris Miller's coverage of the tobacco story has been excellent. He even drove down to the city to cover the meeting in person. What a swell guy!
Jake Morgan wrote perhaps one of the best TedxOU features yet. The humor and charisma of the twins was evident in their quotes. What does this mean? Jake was probably prepared and he asked a lot of questions, and he asked good questions. Being attentive and curious during an interview will exponentially increase the quality of your quotes.
The leads of stories were excellent today. I'm not sure if that's because you all absorbed the knowledge of my lead post, but I'm going to say it was anyway. Awesome job.
RJ Young's men's basketball gamer was top notch. He used imagery to make me feel like I witnessed some of the plays. He made a story about a game of basketball (one that we lost) compelling and interesting. That's tough to do in a formulaic story form (the gamer) and on a tight deadline.
Mary Stanfield gets a little shout out too. She wrote two great editorials on her own! (Normally, I'm the jerk that thinks we should write two.) Both pieces were informative, and she saved a reporter's butt by doing some fact checking and correcting statistics before one of our p.1 stories went live.
Ricardo Patino's photos in the dance story were awesome. It's pretty tough to make the back of a person's head compelling. Ricardo's use of space, perspective and lighting in both of the life and arts photos make that page a piece of eye candy.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Today was awesome. There are some things to complain about, but I will leave those for later. For now, enjoy being part of a quality product.
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