If you flipped over to the back page of last Monday’s paper, you would have come across a large picture of Steve Sexton on the sports page. Sexton, a second-year graduate student, is a talented athlete with Olympic aspirations on the Cal Triathlon Club.

Summer provides a great opportunity for the Daily Cal to cover stories such as Sexton’s. The sports section only publishes once a week in the summer compared to five days a week in the fall and spring semesters, but it allows the section the ability to produce more features on teams and athletes.

Although much of the coverage in the fall and spring is dedicated to the 27 Division I teams on campus, the Daily Cal recognizes there are athletes at UC Berkeley with noteworthy accomplishments for club teams.

Last week, ESPN.com featured “a few of the best non-NCAA-sanctioned programs in the country.” Its first article was on the Cal rugby team, winners of 14 of the last 15 national championships, including a 37-7 win over BYU in May. While the Daily Cal assigns a beat writer to the rugby team because it is a Division I sport, ESPN.com’s coverage serves as a reminder that there are often teams and athletes that are overlooked by the media. It’s great to see a national media organization like ESPN be mindful of less prominent sports. Read the rest of this entry »

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Welcome to The Daily Californian Editor’s Blog! This being the first ever post, please take a moment to read about the idea behind this blog.

I will draw from outside sources as much as possible to get various perspectives and keep this blog interesting and informative. Hopefully, it will help familiarize people with different aspects of our organization.

We were all shocked when we learned about the Berkeley family that was found dead in a parking lot at Tilden Regional Park on June 18. In addition to publishing the initial crime story, our coverage also included an article on the memorial for the family.

A journalist’s job becomes very difficult during times like these. The public wants to know why or how such a tragedy can ever happen, but attempting to uncover such information usually requires asking the victims’ friends and family questions at an uncomfortable time.

The Daily Californian follows the Code of Ethics outlined by the Society of Professional Journalists. Two points covered in the second section, titled “Minimize Harm,” had particular relevance the stories written two weeks ago.

— Show compassion for those who may be affected adversely by news coverage. Use special sensitivity when dealing with children and inexperienced sources or subjects.

— Be sensitive when seeking or using interviews or photographs of those affected by tragedy or grief.

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