A rough post-spring break week

Some troublesome journalistic issues are worth discussing in the wake of the IDS' post-spring break editions.\nOne of these is editorial sensitivity. In its March 19 edition, the IDS printed at the top of Page 1 a banner headline that read, "March Sadness." It was referring to the men's basketball team's first round exit from the NCAA tournament -- courtesy of Kent State University. Granted, that is sad, but the headline and story just happened to be printed directly above a story about an IU student, freshman Jamie Epstein, who was killed in a car accident while traveling to New York during spring break.\nLet's put things in perspective here. Basketball team loses to the Kent State Golden Flashes; season ends on sour note once again. Student killed in auto accident; a real tragedy gets overshadowed. \nA previous ombudsman column railed against the IDS bad habit of splashing sports stories and photos all over the front page's primary optical area -- the part of the front page that's above the fold of the newsprint. That's not the crux of the issue this time. The real problem is the journalistic carelessness evident in the headline, "March Sadness." Something more innocuous and accurate, such as "IU ousted by Kent State" or "First round failure," would have been more appropriate and no less effective.\nNewspaper design and layout is sometimes overlooked in the grand scheme of journalism. What looks just fine on its own, such as "March Sadness," can take on a much different meaning when placed among other news stories and photos. Indeed, the way in which a daily newspaper such as the IDS comes together as a whole is complicated and drawn out, with many different people responsible for many tasks that must be accomplished quickly and efficiently without sacrificing accuracy. And by the time the paper is "put to bed," as we in the news business say, its editors and designers are tired, burned out and ready to go home. Thus, miscues such as "March Sadness" sometimes slip by.\nBut maybe it didn't happen that way. Perhaps whomever wrote the headline and laid out the front page thought it was OK. Fine. That's a judgment call; it's what IDS editors and designers are paid to do. It doesn't pass muster, though, when one considers what the family and friends of Epstein might have thought when they saw the front page.\nWell, that's just one of the subjects worth discussing this week. The other one is the IDS editorial board's decision to write a staff editorial praising former men's basketball coach Bob Knight and wishing him luck in his new job as head coach at Texas Tech ("Good Luck, Coach Knight," March 21). \n"The time for criticizing (Knight's) actions here is over," the editorial read. "We should allow him to start with a clean slate…."\nRemember, less than a year ago the IDS editorial board invited controversy in the wake of the Neil Reed "choking" incident by publishing staff editorials that denounced Knight's boorish behavior and demanded that the volatile coach resign or be removed. Doing so probably took a considerable amount of journalistic bravado, but the editorial board was well within its rights in writing such words. \nBut some feel consistency is a more desirable trait for staff editorials. Sean Driscoll, an alumnus and former IDS opinion editor, was so incensed by this most recent staff editorial that he wrote a letter to the editor, published in the March 23 IDS. "When I was opinion editor in spring 2000, the staff took a stand and told the world it was time for Knight to leave IU," Driscoll wrote. "Shame on you, Indiana Daily Student, for taking this cowardly stance in the face of such bravery."\nIn a separate letter to the ombudsman, Driscoll was even harsher toward his former colleagues. "I understand better than anyone about how hard it is to retain institutional memory at a newspaper when your staff rolls over once every four years," he wrote. "But this is unacceptable. We took the very courageous stance when I was opinion editor of being perhaps the only paper in the nation to tell Knight to leave. We've stood our ground before. Why not now?"\nDriscoll has every right to be upset. "… The paper looks stupid," his letter to the ombudsman concluded, "and this is absolutely ridiculous." But handcuffing the current IDS editorial board to positions that were supported in the past is not the solution. \nThe paper's current set of student journalists should and do have the right to espouse whatever positions they see fit in their staff editorials. If such positions come off sounding contradictory or hypocritical, so be it. Looking stupid or brave of its own free will is much preferable to institutional establishment of positions on certain issues to which the IDS editorial board must adhere over time. \nAfter all, one cannot fault the IDS editorial board for trying to mend fences within the IU community. Indeed, wishing Knight luck and remembering the positive aspects of his tenure at IU might be just what we need right now. The past is the past. We may not be able to change it, but we can look for the good in it.