The 115th staff of The Cavalier Daily stepped up beautifully spring semester, and in the first half of our term we were able to institute a slate of improvements and new ideas in addition to maintaining the high quality of the newspaper.
Weekly Pages
For the second year in a row, we were unable to attract an editor for the Business section, which ran on Mondays in the ‘B’ section. After a great deal of thought and debate, we decided to do away with the section due to lack of interest and instead began a new weekly page titled Health & Sexuality. In conjunction with the new page, Health & Science became simply Science.
This new page has been controversial, naturally, and we’re still experimenting with the tone and content. We received more than 25 applicants for the sex columnist position and chose two, as well as a third columnist who reviews literature on sex and relationships. Feature stories on the page spring semester ran the gamut from Adderol abuse to dieting to sexually transmitted infections.
In the coming semester, we hope to produce a series of pertinent, timely articles on health-related subjects, so that the page may achieve a balance between the two halves of its title.
In conjunction with this rethinking of the weekly rotation, we decided to move three of the weekly pages—Focus, Science and Health & Sexuality—to the ‘A’ section. This affords us the opportunity to jump a particularly good weekly story from the front page, which has broadened the content of A1 into a spectrum of the day’s best articles.
There are many other smaller changes to the presentation of the paper as well, and many former members of the staff and other readers have commented on how much better the paper looks.
Opinion
On the Opinion page, we’ve taken concrete steps to strengthen the accountability and accuracy of our columns, requiring columnists to do more extensive research and conduct more interviews.
In the interest of keeping our Opinion writers engaged in the community, we also set a new policy whereby every columnist must attend a University event once a month and incorporate this event into a column. The articles that have been inspired by these events have been some of the strongest we’ve seen in our term.
We also have added a political cartoon that runs every Wednesday on the second Op-Ed page, currently drawn by one of the Graphics editors. Unlike the Edtoon, this piece is larger and has a more continuous tone and set of characters (something along the lines of “Doonesbury”).
Contracts
We’re pleased to report that we’ve renegotiated both our contract with the Culpeper Star-Exponent and the Associated Press, coming out in both cases with an agreement that saves us a good deal of money.
In addition to saving more money, we also now have the option of running internal color and two-page spreads, allowing staff members to be more creative in their coverage and their special projects. We plan to run internal color at least once a week this coming semester, including color comics.
The Community
As any Cavalier Daily alumnus knows, there is never a shortage of people with an axe to grind about some aspect of the paper. In the interest of remaining as transparent as possible (so that people might at least understand why they’re angry), we organized a community concerns forum, held in late March in the Newcomb Hall Ballroom. Attendance wasn’t particularly high, but those who did come spoke vocally of their concerns, and the editors had an opportunity to respond.
It is always difficult to strike the right balance between remaining attuned to the concerns of the community while maintaining objectivity. We’ll continue to experiment with different means of outreach this semester, hopefully striking a balance that can be productive.
Plans for Fall
There is quite a bit on our plate this semester—so much that it’s a bit staggering to think about.
We’re extremely lucky to have a major election to cover under our watch, and we’ll take advantage of it. We’re already planning our election coverage, and we’ll be sending reporters up and down the East Coast—if not farther—in the days and weeks prior to the election. I hope to have at least a dozen reporters and photographers in the field on election night.
We’ll also be publishing a feature supplement in late October, tentatively titled “The Future.” This supplement will draw together every department in carefully examining the direction that the University is taking and where it will be 5, 10 and 15 years from now.
This summer we began preliminary discussions of reviving the Cav Daily’s weekend supplement, to be inserted in the paper every Thursday. It is a large operation, but thus far we are all optimistic that we can make it happen.
It will be an eventful semester, to say the least. And hopefully we’ll all take the time, now and again, to step back and admire how the paper continues to grow and improve day by day.