Student journalism during a coronavirus-induced sourcing drought
It’s Monday night. I sit down at my desk. I go to check my email and my heart skips a beat when I realize I have one unread message in my inbox. I rush over to open it, assuming it’s a potential source writing me back about an interview request.
I sigh, and roll my eyes as I realize that it’s just another email from Sephora, urging buyers to blow their stimulus checks on endless fluttery lashes and glittering eyeshadow palettes. As of tonight, only one of the college officials I’ve reached out to has emailed me back to schedule an interview. To publish my article in time, I need at least three separate sources.
“Hello, my name is Zoe Ives,” I always begin. “I’m the news section editor for the Courier, the student-run publication on campus. I’m writing to ask if you would be willing to speak with me about the impact of the campus closure on (insert subject here).”
Trying to work as a student journalist during the pandemic is like working in a vacuum.
More or less, that’s how they all go. Every news story I write or pitch to the other writers has something to do with COVID-19 or the campus closure. Trying to work as a student journalist during the pandemic is like working in a vacuum. It’s all consuming and its effects are simultaneously limitless and limiting.
Sometimes it feels like I’m doing more waiting than writing.
Sometimes it feels like I’m doing more waiting than writing. It helps to know that the other students writing for the newspaper are struggling with the same thing and that it’s not that I write hyper-irritating emails (hopefully).
At the same time though, the fact that student journalists are finding it difficult to get enough sources to publish their articles presents an issue for me as an editor. It’s not the writers’ faults — some sources just never respond, and others frequently decide to defer us to officials that are higher up on the informational food chain.
Most often, we are told that we should instead reach out to PCC Superintendent/President Erika Endrijonas and PCC spokesperson Alex Boekelheide. Both have been enthusiastic about speaking to the reporters on the Courier and have been extremely helpful. But as I mentioned before, we need at least three sources to publish.
Endrijonas has no idea why many college officials are so reluctant to respond to student journalists.
“I want to be really clear, I have said nothing to the managers, to anybody, that would lead them to believe that they couldn’t speak with you,” said Endrijonas.
If they haven’t been directed to avoid us, it must be a personal choice. But what’s really driving this reluctance?
“…People are reluctant to say certain things out loud because they don’t know if they’re going to be proven wrong in a day or two,” said Alex Boekelheide.
“I think everybody’s afraid of having their words taken out of context, and that’s pretty much the ballgame as far as it goes when you’re saying anything to anyone,” Boekelheide said. “We’re being forced to make decisions with imperfect information, stuff is changing all the time, and so as a result people are reluctant to say certain things out loud because they don’t know if they’re going to be proven wrong in a day or two.”
Endrijonas echoed Boekelheide’s statements about the fear of being taken out of context and a “fluid” situation possibly being the driving factors behind campus officials’ reserved responses. She also theorized that an oft-told myth about journalists and reporters may have something to do with people being hesitant to work with us.
“I don’t know if this is fair or not, sometimes there is the idea that reporters, especially students, are looking for something salacious,” she said. “Something ‘headline,’ like ‘oh, the administration doesn’t care.’ I don’t think you’re doing that, but that also might be part of it too.”
Endrijonas explained that PCC officials, herself included, sometimes have to be careful about staying in their own lanes due to the way decisions are made and powers are divided. College officials may not want to come off like they are speaking for another division, and for this reason they defer to someone with more power to do so. That’s where Endrijonas and Boekelheide come in.
Chedva Weingart, the director of fiscal services at PCC, was initially contacted as a possible source for a story about the financial impact campus closure would have on the college. At the time she was contacted, Weingart decided to defer one of our reporters to Boekelheide for the information needed to write the piece.
“My view would have been too narrow in scope,” she said in an email. “It is always better to get a more comprehensive view of the activities and effects of a campus as huge as ours from someone in the President’s Office. The higher the position, the more accurate and comprehensive the view would be.”
Campus officials have always expressed a certain degree of reluctance and hesitation when it comes to speaking to student reporters.
According to Nathan McIntire, a journalism professor and faculty advisor to the Courier, this is not a new phenomenon. Campus officials have always expressed a certain degree of reluctance and hesitation when it comes to speaking to student reporters. Some people are just a lot less comfortable talking to the press, and I suppose that it is only natural (though unfortunate) that COVID-19 and the campus shutdown exacerbate this discomfort.
Of course, technical difficulties are also to blame. It’s admittedly not ideal that we have to exchange important information through email and over the phone rather than in person, and it is certainly limiting for reporters to have to do so. It is also a lot harder for sources to feel that they can trust us with information if they have never spoken with us in person before.
“The more difficult thing is you guys can’t go show your faces as students and say ‘Hey, listen, we’re not some scary tabloid trying to make you look bad, we’re student reporters trying to do an assignment and do it right,’ and I think that usually placates a lot of people,” McIntire said.
As student reporters, we are often told that we should capitalize upon the “student” label, but what do we do when our sources have no in-person connection to us as students, and know us simply as people probing for information that they might not feel secure about? From a public relations perspective, it makes sense to not respond to student journalists or to redirect them to campus spokespeople, who are expected to have the most updated information.
We have a unique opportunity now to rise to the challenge and become better reporters as a result.
As frustrating as this response can be, it also presents students with an important lesson. A combination of patience and diligence is necessary when searching for and contacting sources for any piece. We have a unique opportunity now to rise to the challenge and become better reporters as a result.
Another Monday down, and no replies yet. I sit back in my chair and rub my eyes. If school officials don’t answer, how are we supposed to write articles? How can we be expected to build a portfolio? What do we turn in to get a decent grade in the class?
Thankfully, all of my personal melodrama aside, the Courier has been able to turn out relevant stories in each and every one of its sections. We aren’t lacking in general content, and it’s thanks to our student reporters that we have been able to achieve this.
“I’m really proud of you all for doing this under extraordinary circumstances,” McIntire said. “I definitely wouldn’t say that our quality of work has fallen off. It’s just that it seems like it’s been a lot more hassle for you guys to track people down.”
