"We don't make the news, we just report it." This quote was used in the video today, and I just have to comment on it and some other aspects of today's discussion. My hometown has barely more than 3,000 people in it and I received my bachelor's from a college that had just fewer than 7,000 people attending. Both put out weekly papers, and I worked on the paper at ASU so I have some experience with small newspapers. In both places it was very easy to see that there was never really any news; we had to scrape the bottom of the barrell to fill a six page paper in a week. When that is how the paper is being filled, the editors are not just reporting the news, they are making it; because, honestly, who is interested in reading a 300 word article about the show in the planetarium. I wrote it and saw the whole six people who were there for the FREE show. Nobody cared.

Another issue I think should be discussed at some point is how diversity is achieved in the newsroom. The authors touched on newspapers hiring of minorities, mostly in reference to race, using affirmative action. Affirmative action is one of the movements that I think had good intentions behind it initially, but it doesn't always work in the intended way. I'm all for newsrooms being diverse, but I don't think that diversity should be forced above all else. If qualified people apply for positions, then, yes, hire them no matter if they are "black, white or polka-dotted" but don't limit the search to those in a minority group. If you have to go to extreme measures to find a qualified applicant that is part of a minority group, rather than finding a minority who is interested enough to search out your company, then that applicant is probably not who you want working for your media company.

By all means, go to schools with a higher percentage of minorities attending to let them know of job opportunities that they might not know of, but don't JUST go to those schools because you might miss out on a great young writer who is a part of the majority.