Pathfinder Critique: Issue 16

It's a new year and new life for the everybody's favorite LCSC student newspaper. Let's all hope the ads start flowing in like the mighty Columbia River at flood stage so we can continue to produce what has been a top-quality weekly publication through to the end of the semester.

THE GOOD

The cover looked spiffy, and while recycling old news (the uncredited review of 2010 campus events) was not ideal, in this instance it worked as local-interest content in a pinch.

No Kasi column nor Doodling cartoon — much sadness — but Jed and Kelly-Rae held up their end of the bargain, and the piece on the shooting of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was an engaging and timely choice for filler.

Staff report on the death of local artist Sara Joyce showed good news sense, although the quote from curator Ellen Vieth in the last paragraph made no sense.

Keeping with the issue's theme, Alex's culinary column was also a look back at the year that was in dining out, and a fine one at that. Note to business manager: Bogey's would seem to be fertile soil for much-needed advertising, but don't bother making a trip to Grumpy's.

Kaylee and Jeremiah kept their swerves on with their respective reviews of "Tron: Legacy" and Stereolab's "Not Music." Jeremiah's article was particularly insightful and compelling.

In sports we had a pair of excellent recaps of the basketball teams' doings over the holiday break, followed by an amusing Sports Shorts column by Jed on the various ways in which people become fans.

Your adviser's personal favorite this issue was — you guessed it — a full page of "Word on the Street" quotes. Check me here, though: Did all of those quotes run in the Pathfinder previously or were some of them leftovers? Don't remember seeing a couple of those faces before.

THE NOT-SO-HOT

We left in the date — Jan. 14 — in the story on the wilderness paintings going on display at CAH. Since the exhibit was opening two days after publication of this issue, it should have read "Friday."

The news release on the black walnut tree being cut down due to disease piqued my interest, and would be made a nice staff-generated feature with photos (if available).

THINGS TO WORK ON

We appear to have regressed in the editing department with this issue. Perhaps it was the long layoff, but I stumbled over many of the same style and grammar errors that I thought we'd begun to eradicate. Here again is my advice:

• Writers — always double-check your work before turning it in; remember that it's your name on the byline. Also, familiarize yourselves with Associated Press style.
• Editors, every story that goes in the paper should be filtered, preferably twice, before it's put on an electronic page (i.e. do not copy and paste from e-mails directly into InDesign).
• Also, editors, do no harm. By this I mean, take care not to add new mistakes to people's stories when editing. Nothing torpedoes staff morale faster. 
• Lastly, do not be afraid to consult the AP Style Guide and Webster's Dictionary frequently.

WRONG	RIGHT
LC students	L-C students (L-C is hyphenated)
January 27	Jan. 27
in Sept.	in September
August 8th	Aug. 8
Fall	falll (as a season is not capitalized)
afterwards	afterward
eleventh studio album	11th studio album
twenty years later	20 years later
ten minutes	10 minutes
$1,000,000	$1 million