For most members of the Class of 2008, today will mark the last time they pick up a hard copy of the Daily as they mill about on the Hill. But even as they leave behind the world of campus journalism, grads' relationship with the news media will follow them long after they leave Tufts - and will likely teach them much more than just how to work on the sudoku in the middle of a lecture without being seen by their professors.
Our hope here at the Daily is that today's graduates will continue to consume the media of "the real world" as intelligently and critically as they have here at Tufts. Over the last four years, we've seen students engage in thoughtful discussion about journalistic standards and ethics that demonstrate their unwillingness to sit back and passively digest what they hear on the news or read in the paper.
Last year's controversy over the Primary Source's publication of offensive material denouncing Islamic fundamentalism and affirmative action admissions policies, while regrettable, was met with smart, constructive feedback that ultimately prodded the administration to take positive steps toward defining the university's free speech policy.
The Media Advisory Board, the coalition formed by the leaders of the campus media outlets, changed from a lifeless, toothless, mostly administrative body to a vibrant association known as the Media Advocacy Board, which promotes events like the Annual Conference on Student Journalism to address questions of how student-run media groups can better serve their community. And our own Op-Ed pages - as well as those of our peer publications - have always brimmed with your letters to the editor and op-ed essays, letting us know that you know how to use the media as a tool for public discourse.
But will critical analysis of the media end up being merely a college habit that goes out the window as soon as the cap and gown are doffed and the rigors of adult life start monopolizing your time and energy? When you take that job in California next month and you read something in the San Francisco Chronicle that really gets you keyed up, will you write a letter to its editor? When you start grad school in Atlanta and you think that Channel 11's evening news coverage is unfair or inaccurate, will you post a comment on its Web site?
You'd better, because the media of the 21st century is nothing if not reliant on the interaction between newsmakers and consumers. The three bastions of traditional news media - radio, television and print reporting - are all waning, or more accurately, merging with new, Web-based media forms: blogs, podcasts, wikis and the like.
Gone is the era when Walter Cronkite read the evening news to a captive audience with public opinion resting on his every word. Instead, viewers, listeners and readers now play an active role in shaping news coverage, whether they contribute videos of events they've captured on their camera phones to a local TV news report or they cheer and jeer the New York Times' political coverage on a variety of blogs.
Thus, it is crucial that those who wish to be fully informed members of this modern society not only follow all of these various forms of news coverage, but also understand how they work and how to interact with them. To that end, Tufts alum and New York Times Magazine political journalist Matt Bai (LA '90) suggested at the third-annual Edward R. Murrow Forum on Issues in Journalism on April 15 that public schools incorporate a course on media literacy into their curricula.
But until that happens, what are today's grads supposed to do in the meantime to ensure that they will continue to be active media consumers in the years to come? The technology might be new and seemingly complicated, but understanding it is surprisingly simple: Roll up your sleeves and put a little work into it.
Never read, listen to or watch the news without knowing who did a report, who the reporter's sources were and what his or her motives were for creating the report in the first place. Seek out multiple news sources to ensure that you're getting a comprehensive view of a particular issue. Know how the media outlets you're consulting operate: Most news stations and publications post their standards and practices and/or ethics policies on their Web sites.
And don't let the fact that "real-world" media outlets are more polished and better funded than what you're used to seeing on this campus intimidate you; you're still entitled to talk to them. When you knew about an event or occurrence at Tufts that you felt was important for other students to hear about, you didn't hesitate to e-mail us here at the Daily and suggest it as a story idea, and there's no reason you shouldn't transfer that practice to other news media once you graduate.
The same goes for the student journalists who, after receiving their diplomas today, will go on to practice their craft on a much grander scale. For four years, their work has been guided by the fact that they had an intensely intimate connection with their audiences. Whether you wrote for the Daily, put together broadcasts for WMFO or snapped photos for the Tufts Traveler magazine, you had to sit in class, dine and work out next to your readers and listeners.
You were living and working in the environment you were covering, so you had immediate feedback that let you know if your reporting was erroneous or if you had fallen out of touch with the public. Don't think that just because the people you're reporting on are no longer your dorm mates means that you are somehow above their influence or that you no longer have the same responsibility to deliver them the highest quality of reporting.
So, dear graduates, if you've learned nothing else in your four years of reading the Daily (and the Source, and the Observer, and so on), it's that you have a voice in the way the news media covers your world - and that that voice matters. You exercised your voice and started many important discussions here on the Hill that showed what great things can happen when the public and the news media work together.
Keep up the good work.
