Two positives and a negative: The Hatchet's SA Election Blogging

I think it was from an episode of "Family Guy" that I learned to criticize by starting out with a positive comment, then a negative, and then finish with a positive comment.

It’s in that spirit that I analyze The Hatchet’s news blog this week.

First, the positive: the Hatchet’s election night coverage on their news blog was comprehensive, informative and timely.

Now, the criticism: In the blog post detailing the timeline about the election results, Hatchet reporter and blogger Andrew Ramonas included such postings as:

11:16 p.m. Tim Miller was just seen throwing a football across the ballroom with
SA executive vice president Brand Kroeger.

11:17 p.m. EVP candidate Kyle Boyer throws the football to Kroeger, who returns the football to Chris Rotella. Rotalla then hits an innocent bystander. “Stop throwing the
football,” Miller said over the microphone. (You’ll note that he started it a few moments ago.)

11:32 p.m. Presidential candidate Tarek Al-Hariri is asking about hanging chads. We sense a court case.

11:42 p.m. “Ben Balter is a sex God” did not win, according to the chair. He’s going over the rules, and here are the results…

Admittedly, it can be difficult to maintain a solid, serious dailogue when there's nothing going on. Ramonas acknowledges this in one of his blog entries:

11:31 p.m. This live-blog might seem like watching an ice cube melt in the freezer. Obviously there’s not a lot going on, and we can only offer so much anecdotal commentary. Last year, with the read-out of every ballot, there was a lot more to go on.

Plus, as I mentioned in my blog post two weeks ago, I'm all for people not taking Student Association elections so seriously. But, in my opinion, these "funny" comments were somewhat out of place.

Finally, another positive to round it out: the blog’s coverage of the fire department’s response to smoke at the President apartment building is exactly what the blog should be for – covering goings-on around campus that aren’t crucial enough or timely enough to be in The Hatchet, but have people wondering, “What was that all about?”

I encourage everyone who reads this (and anyone who has an opinion about campus-wide media, good or bad) to write to The Hatchet, post about it on a blog, or even discuss it amongst your friends.