GW Hatchet Blogs - blogs.gwhatchet.com

The Hatchet-Student Association debate is Tuesday night at Jack Morton Auditorium. It is an effort between The Hatchet and the SA, an effort we began just last year. David Ceasar, the senior editor who is in charge of campus outreach, organized the event along with SA President Nicole Capp and others.

The Hatchet, as an independent student newspaper, does not cooperate with University groups too often but this is an instance where there is no downside. We have the opportunity to give candidates a chance to speak and students an opportunity to listen. We are very careful to maintain our independence, which was given to us by the University in 1993. But throughout my time at The Hatchet we have done things with the University and student groups.

One example was in 2006. I was the sports editor and covered the men’s basketball team. At that time, we made a conscious decision to own coverage of the basketball team. We wanted every story first, which wasn’t an easy task because The Washington Post and the Washington Times covered the team daily. Also, the Wall Street Journal followed the team for the year for a feature. But we attended every game and when it became clear that it would be one of the best years in University history, some administrators approached us and asked if we would be interested in producing a magazine for the University. GW paid and we retained editorial independence and oversight. It turned out to be a great product, for which we won a few awards.

The debate is something slightly different. But on the same token, just because we organized it with the group does not affect our coverage of campus politics in any way. Anyway, enough insider baseball. Please come to the debate. It’ll be a lot of fun.

OG Oyiborhoro retracted his statements from an interview earlier this afternoon and announced his plans to continue his bid for the presidency of the Student Association. He also said he will not resign from the senate.

“People said no,” Oyiborhoro told me. “The old establishment said no. They tried to subvert the democratic process at GW. People are tired of the old establishment and that’s why I’m running. I’m going to win this write-in campaign.”

OG Oyiborhoro is resigning from the Student Association senate and will not seek the organization’s presidency. In a meeting this afternoon with me at The Hatchet’s townhouse, Oyiborhoro said he will be working with inner-city kids in Washington next year. He said he will focus on community service. The New York native said he hopes to give students the same opportunity that he has been afforded.

Oyiborhoro said that this has nothing to do with his name being left off the ballot by the Joint Elections Committee or fellow candidate Tarek Al-Hariri’s campaign creating a mock Web site linking his name to the Wikipedia entry for “race card.”

The University announced this morning that it has gotten a $10 million donation for Smith Center. Story breaking, more as soon as possible.

It is an early evening here at The Hatchet as we close out a 20-page issue. We had the opportunity to print a big paper for Feb. 11 because of our Valentine’s Day content. We do special issues several times a year and it gives a chance for our Life and Arts departments to chip in with some creative material. This year, we have involved our News team and urged them to contribute content as well.

We have a particularly strong issue (I think) tomorrow, with tons of interesting stuff. Staff writer Danielle Meister gave a great look at the happenings at the Board of Trustee meetings with two strong front page pieces. Bryan Han, a senior staff writer, did an in-depth analysis of Federal Election Commission campaign funds to see who at the University is giving to whom ¬¬– a must read this campaign season. Sarah Biggart, a staff writer on our Metro team, took a look at the D.C. primary and its widening influence. Emily Cahn, a staff writer on the Student Association beat, gives readers an interesting angle of the Ann Coulter event. And Ben Solomon, our venerable senior staff photographer, contributed some awesome art of Rob Diggs, a GW basketball star, from the team’s Saturday night upset.

Breaking news became an issue late Sunday evening when Metro Editor Eric Roper learned of a tree falling down and causing power outages on Foxhall Road near the Mount Vernon campus. He and Ryder Haske, an assistant photo editor, headed up around 10:45 p.m. to check it out. From his BlackBerry, Roper filed a blog post which talked about the impact. We decided keep it out of the paper and place it online. Roper said he did not think it would prevent Vern students from getting to Foggy Bottom and vice versa. Only time will tell if his predictions were right.

Again, I urge anyone and everyone to contact me at jsherman@gwhatchet.com. Post on the blog, e-mail me or send us a letter. Please let us know what’s on your mind.

The Board of Trustees Friday morning approved a plan to address affordability and cost of attending GW.

As part of this plan, returning students will not see a tuition increase next year.

The University will provide $118 million in aid for undergraduates next academic year. The Board also approved a plan to quadruple fundraising for aid from $10 million to $40 million over the next five years.

Check out the full story coming soon.

Happy Monday. The Hatchet crew – which is partially comprised of New Yorkers and some Massachusetts residents – reconvened after the Super Bowl last night to throw together the paper. I got some interesting feedback through e-mail and on a few other blogs about my last post, which spoke about the front page process. I’d like to answer some quick questions.

The Hatchet’s production process is as egalitarian as it gets. Editors suggest stories they would like on the front page. We toss ideas around all the time and sometimes scrap the page late at night to make room for new news. There are often fights over what makes the front page and sometimes, when better news comes in, the front page crew (me, senior news editor, photo team and layout squad) and the assignment editor on duty, make a decision.

Take today’s front page. Because of the Super Bowl, we laid most of it out on Saturday, leaving a hole for the basketball story on top. When the photo came in, photo editor Nick Gingold and senior staff photographer Ben Solomon thought it needed more space for a better crop. We rearranged the page to make this happen.

I got a few e-mails and some questions about basketball on our front page. If you look through history, we have done it before. This year, we have done it a lot more. There are a few reasons for that. On this campus, basketball is king. Thousands of people attend each game and even more follow it on television and the Internet. During the 2005-2006 season – considered by many the best in University history – The Hatchet made a financial commitment to covering basketball. We send reporters and photographers around the country covering the team. Now, that doesn’t mean its always front-page worthy. But just as that season was historic for its successes, this one is newsworthy for its failures.

From a design standpoint, another factor in front page decisions, basketball photos are incredibly inviting and powerful. That does not mean that we are not running serious stories on our front. Of the five stories on a typical front page, at least four are not sports. Today we had a story about the University lobbying city councilmen to oppose a sick leave act, concerns about HOVA, theater space and problems with voting registration. Tons of hard news for you all to enjoy. Keep the comments and e-mails coming! I can be reached at jsherman@gwhatchet.com.

Tonight is a perfect night to talk about The Hatchet’s front page selection process. Jan. 31’s paper is a case study on how things change.

At about 6 p.m. each Wednesday night, we have our front-page meeting. Jess Calefati (senior news editor), one photo editor, our production staff and I meet to discuss which stories are worthy of the newspaper’s prime real estate. By that time, I have hopefully read all the stories, placed them down on our server and we can have a discussion about newsworthiness of each piece.

Each of us comes with ideas about stories, the production folks visualize layout and photo staff let us know about art. Today, we met just after 6 p.m. and our list looked a little something like this:
• Our centerpiece lead story was a feature by Aya Mueller on Street Sense, the homeless newspaper in D.C. It was well written, accompanied by good art and a good read.
• Our top news story was the admission numbers, which we had just gotten our hands on and minds around.
• A piece on the D.C. City Council and who they support for president.
• We had a brief on the front page that breaks the news on B.J. Novak coming to campus.
• And lastly, a story about GW Votes getting people to vote.

After the front and inside pages were largely done, I got word from Joanna Shapes and Ben Solomon at Smith Center that they thought the men’s basketball game was front-page worthy. So we had to bump the GW Votes to the inside pages. Joanna had a nice narrative of the game so at about 10:30, we switched the front page.

And the finished product looks awesome. We try to get colorful stories on the front, to contrast some of the hard news we put out. Let us know what you think.

A few years back, when I was The Hatchet’s sports editor, I had a blast posting on our sports blog. It was fun and gave me a platform to get some things out there that didn’t make it into our print edition.

Now as editor in chief, I’m looking to do the same. I am looking to explain what goes on behind the scenes at your campus paper. Why do certain things make it into the paper when others don’t? Why do we put things on the front page when we do?

I’d also love to hear questions. So drop me a line at jsherman@gwhatchet.com or post on this blog.

Today marked the first installment of a series on University President Steven Knapp. I had the opportunity to sit down and talk a little bit about his past in September and spent some serious time reporting on him. What I hope came out in the story was that this is a guy who spent a career in academia and now is at the helm of a university – but there was something in between. There will be more to this series in the coming months and we hope to really show the University community who Steven Knapp is.