Why can’t you kids play nice?

I’m the managing editor of The Massachusetts Daily Collegian, the independent student paper at UMass Amherst, and we had a similar institutional bone to pick for a little while with the new kids on the block, The Amherst Wire when they started up.

Eventually, we realized that it was stupid and petty – and that the grad students still have a paper we can dick on – so why hate on New Media? Now we’re media partners, and share stories and resources. We’re both stronger for it.

Then again, we’re just state school kids, so what do we know?

That said, unless things have changed, I think the editorial board is given some pretty generous leeway in what it writes, and I’m not sure how much oversight Rachel and Mary-Jane actually assert over it.

But for what it’s worth, I did read the rest of your post, and I thought it was, as usual, well thought out and well articulated.

However, if we want to talk about shoddy fact checking, just read the rest of my post that you critiqued one line from. Has WSN published a correction?

Expecting credit is only an issue for me because, like you said, it’s an online thing. And WSN’s online presence is, really, merely a formality. Which is the problem.

I’ve long held that WSN needs to beef up its Internet presence, both to supplement and enhance its coverage, and for the benefit of students who use WSN as a training ground. Newspaper experience is good and all, but that alone won’t help anyone get a job in this industry once they graduate.

Part of the problem, I guess, is the print edition. Without sufficient content, it would be redundant to publish articles on the website as they’re filed; the next day’s paper would have no new, substantive content and it’d be a waste of time and money to produce and publish.

That delay is sort of a double-edged sword.

On one hand, it absolves WSN of owing some kind of credit or attribution: “Why would we credit NYU Local for scooping us? We were able to confirm and report this story ourselves, and took it further with our own reporting. They may have done it first, but we can do it ourselves and we can do it better.”

And that would be fine, except they frequently don’t do it much, if at all, better.

But if you’re going to sacrifice timeliness, then you’d sure as hell better have some worthwhile incentive to lure readers with.

If and when WSN’s online coverage is up to speed and they’re still not crediting you when something breaks, by all means, go after them. But right now, they’re completely different beasts. One of which, I agree, is risking a slow, quiet death if it doesn’t wise up.