To paraphrase the great American poet Dorothy Parker, “I hate reporting. I love having reported.”
It’s a sentiment that all journalists feel at some point in their careers. Doing legwork is hard. Getting people to comment on the record in the age of “fake news” is hard. Getting quality photos to go with your work is hard.
Reporting is hard. But it is essential to a functioning society. Whether it’s national, local or hyperlocal, the impact of the press is a great responsibility not to be wasted on trivial matters.
The Alligator published an article on Thursday entitled “UF horticulture chair resigns.” Since then we’ve received plenty of feedback from all sides of the story, which included allegations of domestic abuse. Former UF students, activists and other journalists got into a heated debate in the comment section of the online story. We disabled the comment section Monday morning.
Through it all, we’ve continued to work on the story. It was updated once the morning after it ran, and it is being updated again today. Future updates are in the works.
So why do we do this? Why is The Alligator stirring the pot by reporting on such a story?
Because the truth matters. Nitpicking every single detail and angle matters to us not just as journalists, but as people. If people cannot agree on a well-defined set of facts, then how do we even begin to understand the world?
A shared set of facts helps us all understand issues infinitely better. Stories with facts have the power to sway public dialogue and enact change for the better.
There’s more to any story than just the initial 600-word article that pops up whenever you read it for the first time. Hours of transcribing interviews, missed connections and other extenuating circumstances often lead to an unfinished product being put out before a worldwide audience. It’s not an ideal system, but it’s one that the news media operates under.
Through our work, we’ve uncovered details entirely unrelated to the original point of the story. We choose now to hold off on publishing anything else regarding this subject outside of the aforementioned update until two conditions are met.
The first condition is that our information has to be based on the best sources that we have at that time. The point of reporting a story is not to be first, but rather to be right. Claims on all sides of the story remain unverified, but we’re still working to either confirm or deny them based on hard documentation.
The second condition is that it has to be relevant. There are plenty of avenues The Alligator has been afforded to wander. What it ultimately comes down to is what we want to convey. Pursuing every possible lead is neither feasible nor wise and can tear a story apart before it’s complete.
There are plenty of folks who would say The Alligator has an agenda in this or any other story we publish. We know an editorial won’t change minds on this issue, and we won’t change our reporting based on these opinions.
What we will do is report on stories that matter to the students and residents of Gainesville. It’s thankless work. Good journalism rarely leaves all parties involved happy. The Alligator somehow managed to tick off all parties. And we’re not sorry.
Reporting is hard. But we love having reported.
