2008 Woodie Awards
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Abby Haun
Issue date: 2/19/08 Section: Opinion
I never wanted to write for the Cauldron. In fact, I have never enjoyed writing, period.
So when I wandered into an open house held for the newspaper last spring, bored and wanting something new to occupy my time, my sole ambition was to be the girl who got coffee and did the other grunt work -evidently, the makings of a good production assistant. I was hired.
Had I known how my fellow staff members and I would be treated in the coming year, it's possible I would have turned on my heel and marched right out of Guadalupe House.
I began work in the fall. When it was time to assign stories for the second issue, my editor asked me to write a news brief. I was immediately seized with anxiety. The prospect of seeing my name in print left me with a sense of dread. But I bit the bullet and wrote the brief anyway and ended up enjoying it.
Fast-forward to this spring semester. After moving up the ranks to become associate editor, I was assigned my first front-page story: the change in the Odyssey program staff. That was when my trouble began.
I expected to get some flak for the story. The facts did not paint the administration in a favorable light, but the big problem was one word that I accidentally misquoted. It was an honest mistake but the response I have received borders on excessive.
First, there was the e-mail about my error sent to every student, staff and faculty member stating that the interviewee had said "lurchings." I responded to the e-mail to say that I stood by my version; he had clearly not said "lurchings." Once he listened to his tape, he said that he had, in fact, said "wrenchings." The editor agreed to run a retraction and write the interviewee's version of the quote in the on-line issue. I thought that was fair and hoped the matter would be dropped.
It was not. A philosophy professor came by the Cauldron office to listen to my recording of the interview. Immediately, he expressed his disbelief that I hadn't heard the correct word, and said that maybe we should have replaced our tape. As I glanced at the digital recorder in my hand, he went on to say that he couldn't believe that the word in question had "gotten past" my editor. He also claimed that I hadn't presented all of the facts in the story, making a UST administrator look bad. When I asked what facts I had omitted, he refused to tell me. He also expressed his displeasure at having to take time out of his schedule to investigate this "moral matter."
So when I wandered into an open house held for the newspaper last spring, bored and wanting something new to occupy my time, my sole ambition was to be the girl who got coffee and did the other grunt work -evidently, the makings of a good production assistant. I was hired.
Had I known how my fellow staff members and I would be treated in the coming year, it's possible I would have turned on my heel and marched right out of Guadalupe House.
I began work in the fall. When it was time to assign stories for the second issue, my editor asked me to write a news brief. I was immediately seized with anxiety. The prospect of seeing my name in print left me with a sense of dread. But I bit the bullet and wrote the brief anyway and ended up enjoying it.
Fast-forward to this spring semester. After moving up the ranks to become associate editor, I was assigned my first front-page story: the change in the Odyssey program staff. That was when my trouble began.
I expected to get some flak for the story. The facts did not paint the administration in a favorable light, but the big problem was one word that I accidentally misquoted. It was an honest mistake but the response I have received borders on excessive.
First, there was the e-mail about my error sent to every student, staff and faculty member stating that the interviewee had said "lurchings." I responded to the e-mail to say that I stood by my version; he had clearly not said "lurchings." Once he listened to his tape, he said that he had, in fact, said "wrenchings." The editor agreed to run a retraction and write the interviewee's version of the quote in the on-line issue. I thought that was fair and hoped the matter would be dropped.
It was not. A philosophy professor came by the Cauldron office to listen to my recording of the interview. Immediately, he expressed his disbelief that I hadn't heard the correct word, and said that maybe we should have replaced our tape. As I glanced at the digital recorder in my hand, he went on to say that he couldn't believe that the word in question had "gotten past" my editor. He also claimed that I hadn't presented all of the facts in the story, making a UST administrator look bad. When I asked what facts I had omitted, he refused to tell me. He also expressed his displeasure at having to take time out of his schedule to investigate this "moral matter."