According to the book, the lead gives the reader a peek into what the story will be about without revealing too many details. The who, what, when, where and why are given in their most basic form. This article (what) begins the lead by giving the student journalist’s name (who), and the date in which her article was published (when). Then it hints that the article caused some tension with her school’s administration (who/where). I like how this article physically separates the lead from the rest of the text to show the simplicity a lead can hold.
I feel like the angle of this article is definitely coming from the side of the student reporter. After all, a journalist is writing it. But it seems to show the administration in a negative light from the beginning. Especially with the fact that one of the first anecdotes was about the ‘fact check’ meeting with the student with the administration. The quotes they used from an interview with the student reporter in that section were really powerful in getting their point across. “It was purely to intimidate me.” and she viewed the meeting as the admin telling her to “know her place.”
There are a lot of contexts given for this issue about how and why college administrators limit what’s being said in these newspapers. The biggest issue is the fact that these newspapers are funded by the schools and thus can be controlled easily by them. If they keep posting things that make the school look bad, the school could threaten to withdraw funding. The school was even making it a habit to smother every story and limit everything, even positive ones. The author drew from a study by the American Association of University Professors that college admins tend to always value public relations more than journalism and free speech. This is because they are all focused on maintaining a positive image like any kind of administrators.
