The beat reporter I followed for my JOUR 3190 class is Ezra Marcus. The story I am doing for this news summary was published by the New York Times and can be found here.

 

In regards to FOCII, it appears that immediacy and impact apply to this story the most out of the five interest elements. COVID is an on-going pandemic and continues to be at the front of conversations, satisfying the immediacy aspect. Additionally, the story describes how COVID is impacting R.A.s and university functions as a whole, satisfying the impact element. The “who” of the story is R.A.s which should peak the interest of many college students and alumni from the universities mentioned in the story (“where”: University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and Notre Dame are mentioned in the lead, but the story broadly encompasses many universities). The “when” factor helps add to the element of immediacy, as explained above, since COVID is very much a current event. The real reason this story matters is both the “why” and the “how,” which detail how R.A.s are having to take on a lot more responsibility than they signed up for since they have to patrol the dorms for large gatherings. This puts the R.A.s at risk of contracting the virus, which isn’t fair to them and the universities should have had a better plan for controlling the spread before they opened. 

 

This story quotes Liz Cantlebary (a Cornell senior and R.A.), Notre Dame authorities, Patricia A. Whitely (vice president for student affairs at the University of Miami), Athena Scott (senior and R.A. at Cornell), McKay Stevens (senior and R.A. at Louisiana State University), James Cordero (senior at UMass Amherst and member of Residential Life staff), Ramon Reyes (senior and R.A. at Cornell). This story does a good job of getting various R.A. opinions that are definitely credible, but it doesn’t cover any sort of University staff who may have put these pressures on R.A.s in the first place. Why require R.A.s to risk their lives enforcing COVID guidelines? Are our Universities understaffed or ill-prepared for students to come back to campus? The bias is not inherent in the reporting, but instead appears in the logical conclusions made by the audience after they have read the story--because, yes, it is ridiculous to be putting these student’s lives at risk when this is not what they signed up for. This article passes the Topeka test and active critical thinking from Ezra Marcus can be seen in his coverage of various aspects of how these new responsibilities have negatively impacted R.A.s (the strikes, the lack of response from the university, etc.). 

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The lead used in this story is a summary lead, since it lists out who, what, when, where, why, and how. The nut graf does serve its purpose, since it reveals just how many cases popped up very early on campuses, thus increasing the risk R.A.s face on the front lines. The best quote in this story comes from Athena Scott, who says “Like, I knew when I signed up for this job that I might have to break up parties, but breaking up parties during a pandemic is a little different.” This quote does a great job of illustrating the small, yet important, difference in the duties of R.A.s this year who may not want to put themselves at risk. The use of description enhances the story because it details the activities of a normal R.A., and then compares them to the additional COVID aspect of their duty as well as the risks they are taking. Marcus is able to paint a very clear picture of why this isn’t just through his descriptions.

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On Facebook, The New York Times shared this article with the caption “Being an R.A. is never easy. This year, they’re also on the front lines of colleges’ battle against the coronavirus.” It was posted the same day it was published so this information is timely. In the comments, neither the media outlet nor the reporter responds to comments from posters. The same details listed above also applies to Twitter, where the New York Times posted this article as well. It appears that they focus their audience interests well because they mention both R.A.s and COVID in their caption, which is truly what the article is about. The tone that they establish is one of sympathy for R.A.s. The approach that is most similar to the New York Times social media posts is probably Microblogging, since they included a small bit of text information with a link to the larger story.