Sunday, February 22, 2009

Did the GW Hatchet endorse Kyle Boyer?

A picture appearing above the fold of last Thursday's edition of the GW Hatchet showed two student volunteers for Kyle Boyer's campaign putting up posters outside the Marvin Center.

The title of the article reads, "SA hopefuls poster campus." Boyer's name appears 10 times in the picture while no other candidate's sign can be seen in full.

The story itself is about the stampede of students that fought for the best wall space around campus.
crowds of students restrained by yellow tape bolted across the street, election posters flying, ready to fight for the best wall space in the University's most public areas.
According to the Hatchet, postering is the election "season's biggest and most cutthroat" event, and understandably so. Name recognition is key in these races as many students don't attend debates or online forums, but do pay attention to signs on the way into J Street.

Since name recognition is so paramount, winning a spot on the Hatchet's front page is a pretty big score. Especially since the actual story that accompanied the front page picture can be found buried within on page 3.

The GW Hatchet showed a huge lack of editorial insight when they published a large picture of Kyle Boyer's name on the front page, without the story necessarily being about Boyer, and without the headline being attached to the image.

The story is about earning the best spots on campus to hang posters. The Hatchet gave Boyer's his best yet.

View the PDF of last Thursday's Hatchet here
.

2 comments:

Andrew Perez said...

Saw that too. Looked pretty sketchy if you ask me.

SMolldrem said...

I noticed it as well. Poor call on the editors' part.