Being a student journalist at the Daily Cal involves performing a master balancing act. As an individual, you must balance your responsibilities at the paper with your classes. As an editor, you have to balance you time and attention among multiple writers and stories on a daily basis. And most fundamentally, you must guarantee a balance between the views and facts within each and every story.
It was the latter challenge that came into sharp focus with a recent story on the resignation of Interfraternity Council president Nikhil Bhagat, which was prompted by a hazing incident involving members of his fraternity, Delta Tau Delta. The story, written by the student communities reporter Vincent Quan, was a delicate one to report and an even more sensitive one to edit.
Running the story in itself was a decision made based on our duty to our readers. It is our belief at the Daily Cal that we must report what we know when we know it—as fairly and accurately as possible. We are not out to be sensational but instead it is our purpose to report news that students and community members have a right to know.
This story represented an opportunity to reveal the details of how campus administrators dealt with a serious situation and also to present readers with the truth behind the resignation of a student leader.
Once the decision to pursue the story was made and the reporting was done, it became evident that there were multiple layers to the story. The editing process drew out a few debates over how to organize the different aspects to most accurately convey the situation.
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