By Abby Peterson
One day during interim, I sat in a quiet courthouse in western South Dakota watching lawyers file in, greet each other and sit in front of a circuit judge. I was there reporting on the arraignment of a youth worker who had been charged with sexual contact with a child under the age of 16. I was nervous. Court cases make everyone feel on-edge.
That story, one I finished an hour later in a Caribou Coffee, hit the front page of the local newspaper the next day, then disappeared into the newspaper archives. This is the blessing and curse of a daily newspaper, where there’s always a new centerpiece story to gape at every time the sun rises.
The Clarion is different, which can make the job exciting, different and challenging, because we know the stories you see won’t be replaced by others on the racks the next day. This also gives our reporters and editors a distinct amount of responsibility to get the facts right.
In our February issue, we covered two major pieces of news on Bethel’s campus – a high-profile rapper and a projected budget deficit for the university we’re all a part of. These two pieces of news, plus the other news we covered, required hours of work from reporters and editors and ethical discussions in our newsroom. Being student journalists means that the newsroom is also our classroom, and vice versa. We’re learning. We’re growing.
Although there’s no famous rapper on the cover of this issue, we still logged hours readying each story for print. The truth, after all, does matter, and it’s worth pursuing. We hope that’s illustrated by our work.
Abby — You did a wonderful job writing the story about Snoop Dog and doing double duty by taking photos as well. I am curious to know how many pieces/songs/raps did Snoop Dog perform at Bethel and which ones were they? – Lynn Gunnarson Dahlstrom, Clarion Editor In Chief, 1986-1987.