Beckie Supiano, a reporter at The Chronicle of Higher Education, along with James Roche, Associate Provost of Enrollment Management at the University Massachusetts at Amherst, led a candid session at the 探花楼 Annual Meeting on the reporter鈥檚 perspective on data, information and higher education. Supiano, who has been covering financial aid at the Chronicle since 2008, told attendees on Tuesday afternoon that colleges who have an opportunity to share their information and stories should do so.
鈥淲e are open to talking to people, that鈥檚 why you become a reporter,鈥 she said.
Roche encouraged audience members to consider that higher education reporters play a large role in agenda setting. News stories, he said, don鈥檛 tell readers how to think but, instead, what to think about.
Both Supiano and Roche emphasized that higher education sources have the opportunity to teach reporters, particularly student reporters, about their work. In fact, Supiano said reporters often like to be treated like they know less than they do. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a really bad interview if I don鈥檛 get a really good idea for something else I鈥檇 like to look into. If you walk in thinking you already know everything, you really are doing it wrong.鈥
Supiano mentioned her interest in covering stories connected to campus-level data (rather than national-level data) and using those types of stories to demonstrate broader issues and to understand a larger group of people.
鈥淣ational data can hide a lot of things,鈥 she said.
Q&A took place throughout the session, with discussions emerging on a range of topics, from student debt and college media relations operations to reporters鈥 processes for corrections after publishing and assisting student reporters.
鈥淐olleges are dynamic, they are always changing,鈥 Supiano said. 鈥淗opefully my own thinking about these things is getting more sophisticated.鈥