Page 2
University Daily Kansan Wednesday, Oct. 3, 1956
---
UDK Reporters Run Aground
Too often, reporters for the University Daily Kansan go out on their news "beats" for a story and come back with a tale about Tom Yoe, director of public relations. The tale comes from assorted faculty members and it is always the same. It always serves to say: "all our news will be released through Tom Yoe's office."
To a Reporting II student who needs a minimum of 250 inches of published matter for a grade of "C." a reply like this is frustrating.
Sometimes the newsless faculty members feel they are in too big a hurry for student reporters. Others just get downright nasty.
One, Daily Kansan reporter thought he had an instructor lined up for a good personality feature story. He prepared questions in advance and he arranged and rearranged his schedule for the instructor's fluctuating one.
When asked for specific information, the instructor did his best to equivocate and to offer only generalities and broad statements, somewhat like a politician. He seemed to enjoy the reporter's consternation almost as if it were a teasing game.
But once the interview started, the reporter saw that this instructor was going to shield himself behind apathy or obstinance. The reporter was made as uncomfortable as possible. Why the instructor took such an attitude is hard to understand.
The type of non-specific information he gave does not and did not make a good feature article. Neither does it make a good news story.
The instructor also criticized the reporter's interviewing ability, telling him he would report him to his journalism instructor for lack of ability. How an instructor in a non-journalism field could make such a statement is hard to imagine, especially when the reporter had made numerous successful interviews previously.
The instructor even felt qualified to judge news by refusing to give his age. He said it lacked news value.
About the only time a person's age is omitted is when it is completely irrelevant or when it isn't known. In a personality interview, age is usually relevant. The reporter told the instructor this as well as a few of the other rudiments of interviewing and the interview became hot and testy and ended that way, half completed.
However, sometimes a reporter never gets that far. Instead he receives the "Tom Yoe" treatment
instead he receives the "Tom Yoe" treatment. If each member of the faculty would be more tolerant and painstaking, he would stop to consider the student reporters.
The full-fledged professional reporter gets his news by talking to people, an art which needs apprenticeship. He must learn to keep conversation on pertinent subjects and not let it wander. He must interview efficiently, thoroughly and accurately. Time is a pressing element while deadlines exist. The efficient reporter gets in, gets his news, and gets out. saving both himself and his news source wasted time.
Learning to do this most efficiently requires dozens of interviews. Only by talking to a news source, asking him questions, feeling around for possible news that a news source may inadvertently be withholding can the reporter get material for The Daily Kansan.
To get a story a Daily Kansan reporter must feel around a little, ask questions, but best of all, he must try to establish an easy and casual relationship with his news source so conversation will come freely and easily.
Generally accepted is the fact that he faculty is not always news conscious.
However, when the news source says, "Tom Yoe's office will release my news," the reporter has gained nothing. There is no training in walking to Tom Yoe's office to pick up a mimeographed news release. Most faculty members don't know that Mr. Yoe's staff isn't big enough to handle news for the entire University.
If faculty members would like to learn from Chancellor Franklin D. Murphy's office, they would never be too busy to see Daily Kansan reporters. The Chancellor himself is always available for an appointment, which is all a reporter asks.
When the chancellor's office has news pop up in between a reporter's calls, it calls it in to the reporter or the newsroom. The chancellor's office gets good coverage and so would the entire University if it would cooperate equally well.
A last point is the obligation of the instructor to the student, including the student outside the instructor's field. Too often an instructor feels he has done his job when he gives time only to students taking his classes or who are in his special field.
A university, like other institutions and organizations is an integrated whole, and when the institution's integration begins to whither so does the institution. No better example of this whithering can be found than in the plight of The Daily Kansan. Because of the nature of his major, he depends upon other departments and their hands for news, and without the co-operation of the faculty he is losing the training owed and necessary to him.
We take it all back! We take it all back!
... Just Browsing ...
Much of the static which you've been reading in this column during the past few weeks has been disproved, and very emphatically so, we admit.
Saturday afternoon coach Chuck Mather's football team went out on the turf of Memorial Stadium and in the final 20 minutes of play disproved the old saw that "there is no school spirit at KU."
As everyone in the surrounding six counties obviously knows by now, the Jayhawkers overcame leads of 14 and 7 points to salvage a tie from a game which appeared too be hopelessly lost.
Such action is practically revolutionary here at KU, and it appeared to come as a distinct shock to the student cheering section.
However, most of the students apparently snapped out of their stunned lethargy to respond with a little vocal encouragement for the Big Red, which in turn responded to this support with a magnificent comeback.
In fact, we've been watching or following KU football for nigh onto the past 10 years, and the only similar comeback we can remember was about six years ago when the Jayhawkers rose up to overwhelm Colorado after spotting the visitors a big early lead.
But back to the present. and to reality.
But in all three cases, it's a start,
and a darned good one at that.
We're acutely aware of the old saying that "one swallow doesn't make a summer." Along that same line, one tie with College of the Pacific doesn't make a football season, and also, one cheer doesn't make lasting school spirit.
In all three cases, there will probably be cold, bleak days, but the favorable signs at least give promise of better things to come.
Saturday the Jayhawkers host Colorado in their opening game of Big Seven Conference play. Colorado has shown signs of being a tough competitor, and Saturday could be one of those cold, bleak days we were talking about. Or, it also could be a fine, warm day, with the delicate scent of orange blossoms floating into Memorial Stadium.
But regardless of what type of day the players have, there is no reason why the students should have a bad day. We readily admit that it's tough to cheer when the old home team is getting clobbered, but it's equally true that it's tough for the player to give his maximum effort when he's the one who's getting clobbered.
Yet the student body demands that the football player put forth to the best of his ability at all times, and the player is derided if he fails to do so.
Now, take five minutes and look at it from his side of the stadium. End of sermon.
—Dick Walt
Mount Washington (6,288 feet) is the highest point in the northeastern United States, says the National Geographic Society. A crew of weathermen lives there the year around, making tests of atmospheric conditions. In April, 1934, they recorded the greatest gust of wind ever measured on earth-231 miles an hour.
Louisiana's capitol, rising above Baton Rouge, includes 48 steps, each marked with the name of a state and the date of its entrance into the Union.
Can you Roller Skate?
You Can Learn
Beginners Class Starts Thursday - 6:15 p.m.
Lawrence Roller Rink
VI 3-9818
East Hiway 10
Security Council Prepares For Debate On Suez Canal
By UNITED PRESS
UNITED NATIONS, N. Y. —(UP)
Security Council debate on the Suez Canal crises is likely to develop into a general discussion of Middle East policy by the foreign ministers of Britain, France, The United States and Russia, observers said.
The Council voted to give full airing to opposing Anglo-French and Egyptian items pertaining to the Suez developments. It then adjourned until later to permit time, as Russia put it, for "all" the foreign ministers concerned to get here.
The Security Council, at the request of Australia, postponed until its next meeting a decision on whether Israel should attend the Suez debate. Israel asked to attend on grounds it had a "special interest" since Egypt has closed the canal to Israeli shipping in violation of the 1888 treaty guaranteeing free passage.
The council killed a Russian-supported Yugoslav move to debate the Egyptian complaint at the same time they debated the Anglo-French item, by a 6-2 vote, with China, Iran, and Peru abstaining. It gave first priority to the Anglo-French item.
The agenda that will confront the foreign ministers is this:
"Situation created by the unilateral action of the Egyptian government in bringing to an end the system of international operation of the Suez Canal, which was confirmed and completed by the Suez Canal Convention of 1888." The
item was submitted by Britain and France.
"Actions against Egypt by some noters, particularly France and The United Kingdom, which constitute a danger to international peace and security and are serious violations of the U. N. Charter." The item was submitted by Egypt.
Daily Hansan UNIVERSITY
University of Kansas student newspaper
1904, triviewer 1908, daily, Jan 16, 1912
1904, triviewer 1908, daily, Jan 16, 1912
Member Inland Daily Press Association. Associated Collegeate Press. Represented by National Advertising Service, 420 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. News service: United Press. Mall subscription rates: $3 a semester or $4.50 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan. every after Sundays. University year except Saturdays and Sundays. University holidays, and examination periods. Entered as second-class matter Sept. 17, 1910. at Lawrence, Kan. post office under act of March 3, 1879.
Extension 251, news room Extension 376, business office
Telephone VIking 3-2700
NEWS DEPARTMENT
Dick Walt ... Managing Editor
Margaret Armstrong, Gerald Dawson,
Larry Stroup, Louis Stroup, Assistant
Managing Editors; Kent Thomas, City
Editor; Fleecia Fenberg, Assistant City
Editor; Jane Pecinovsky, Telegraph
Editor; Daryl Hall, Sports Editor;
Gerald Thomas, Robert Riley, Assistant
Sports Editors; Betty Jean Stanford,
Society Editor; Dona Seacat, Assistant
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Todd Crittenden ... Business Manager
Lee Flanagan, Advertising Manager; Joe Gound, National Advertising Manager; Jennifer Hegesen, Advertising Manager; Wayne Helgesen, Circulation Manager
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Ray A. Aggerson Editor
David Webb Associate Editor
... Letters ..
Editor:
I should like to direct the following question to whoever can give a reasonable answer.
Why should ID cards be nontransferable with respect to admission to athletic events, concerts, and the like?
The ID card is essentially nothing more or less than proof of payment of the Campus Privilege Fee by the student; thus it indicates that a seat has been purchased for a given event, and someone has a right to sit in it. Why does the purchaser not have the right to say who should do so?
It is fortunate that drama presentations require reserved tickets, for this means that the nontransferable ID card permits its owner to allow someone else to attend if he cannot. If such procedure were in effect for athletic events, then without extra cost, which at present prevails, one could arrange for the attendance of high school students, alumni, wives, etc., perhaps in so doing, also interesting the first two groups respectively in matriculating or donating. Thus in the long run the University would surely be benefitted.
—E. David Cater, graduate student
Aluminum is the most plentiful non-ferrous metal in the world. It represents one-eighth of the earth's crust, but is so intricately concealed that its existence eluded scientists until it was discovered in 1807 by Sir Humphrey Davy, British electrochemist.
Of the myriad of stars in the sky, only a mere 1,500 to 2,000 individual stars can be seen above the horizon at any one time.
E
Sunday, October 7th 2:30 p.m Hoch Auditorium
Tickets $1.50 On sale At Information Booth and Student Union