Daniel Gross had cracked the story of mysterious resignations among student staff at a Towson University dormitory. But the student journalist's pride quickly turned to frustration when 3,000 newspapers went missing from racks around campus. Full Story »
Posted by Andrew Hazlett
Student journalists feel they've run up against a wall in trying to assign accountability for thousands of stolen newspapers. This story raises the possibility that some students and administrators are unhappy with the Towson Towerlight's aggressive reporting. One major concern: The story would be strengthened by examples of "the backlash from university officials" described by the student journalists. Is there evidence of this?
I'm curious... what are the ethics of naming people (presumably all over 18) who have been caught up in campus disciplinary action? Is it unusual for a college paper to "name names"? Regardless, universities are supposed to be *more* open to free speech. It's unsettling that the suppression of a student paper doesn't seem to be a bigger deal to the administration at Towson.
I think this is a fairly good piece of journalism, with the exception that I would have liked to see more straight quotes from Gross and Dunsworth and not just a lot of paraphrased paragraphs. I thought that the article was good for being original and not something that would be covered on a widespread scale, but it is still important to the student population and community of Towson. This is also a story that the reporter could come back to and follow up on. That being said the writing was pretty good. The lead was interesting but maybe could have captured the readers attention better. I though it had a nice flow of ideas in it and didn't really place blame on anyone, only through Gross's words. They didn't really introduce ... More »
As a Towson student and journalism major who will be working on the Towerlight, I guess I have some bias because to me students stealing papers because of a story I wrote would be enraging, so I definitely sympathize with how Gross is feeling. I also think it is very immature for people to be stealing newspapers, although I did not read the article, you never know if perhaps Gross did indeed place blame or conviction on innocent parties.
As noted in my comments, the story was overall well written, I would just liked to have gotten the sides from the RA as well. Just to be able to get a perspective on how they see the whole situation. But overall i think it was well written
This was an interesting story because I personally had no idea this was going on around campus. I do not think it was right for Towerlight to include the actual names of the RA; there should be some kind of privacy there..But for people to steal 3000 copies of a paper like they cant be reprinted is crazy! I would have liked to get direct quotes from the RA's involved or just other RA's for opinions about the matter.
Initially, I chose this article because it pertains to Towson University and the headline was eye-catching. This article does not include many sources which makes me find this article a little bias because it just reflects Gross' opinion.
Its ok I just wish they interviewed the police and maybe one of the RA's that the story was concerning.
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