VPA Awards

Thursday will be the last official day of Cavalier Daily production this semester, but we're not done yet: Some members of the staff will continue to work past that date in order to prepare The Cavalier Daily's submissions for the 2008 Virginia Press Association contest.
Every year, the Virginia Press Association — of which The Cavalier Daily is a member — holds one of the largest news, editorial and photography contests in the nation. In the past, The Cavalier Daily has performed well in categories ranging from layout design to in-depth reporting, even though it competes against professional publications. Last year, The Cavalier Daily's tableau section stood out — sweeping first through third place in the critical writing category in which The Cavalier Daily competes — and several other sections also took home second or third place awards.In order to nominate the most deserving articles published by The Cavalier Daily since Jan. 1, section editors and other staff members comb through the archives to find the best articles in a variety of categories ranging from Column Writing to Sports Column Writing. Also included are a number of design and photography categories.VPA awards are judged on several qualities, depending on the category in which an entry is submitted. For example, most news articles are judged on their clarity, style, precision of vocabulary, accuracy, attribution, attention to detail and grammar, among other qualities. Each entry category has strict rules for how a publication can nominate articles, and The Cavalier Daily will do its best to see that its best articles have a chance at once again winning some of these awards.

The man behind the camera

If you read the Sports page carefully on a regular basis, you've probably become familiar with one student's name. It's not Marc Verica or Monica Wright, though — it's Jason O. Watson.
Though Jason O. Watson isn't the star of a U.Va. sports team, for the past several years he's been the star of our photography department, particularly when it comes to sports photography. Next time you pick up the Sports page, if you look closely, you'll see he's responsible for most of the photos appearing on the page.
If you've enjoyed the action shots you've seen in the paper or his occasional political photography for The Cavalier Daily, be sure to check out Jason's website for more great shots.

Behind the scenes

With a staff that changes every year, few things in The Cavalier Daily's operations are constant. To maintain some form of continuity from year to year, The Cavalier Daily operates on the basis of a policy guide and its constitution. Not all policies make sense forever, though, so The Cavalier Daily's staff recently completed its annual update to each of these documents.
In last week's Constitutionals meeting, the entire staff — at least, all of the staff members who didn't have a legitimate excuse to not be present — gathered to amend our organization's constitution. In the meeting, the staff altered a few positions and sections of the staff, including the online department, the business staff and the copy editing staff. Normal readers should not have any reason to notice any difference in the newspaper and website being produced for them daily — updates to the constitution reflect basic institutional changes that often have already been informally implemented for several months or years.
Our policy guide, meanwhile, contains procedures that affect readers more directly. To see updates relating to how letters to the editors are processed, policies on gathering quotes by e-mail versus telephone and other topics, check out the updated version policy guide on our website at your convenience, and don't hesitate to let us know if you have any questions.

Hoops special edition

If you were expecting to read about University news in today's Cavalier Daily, we hope you won't be too disappointed. Instead of our typical paper, today you can find "Hoops" on our newsstands.
Whether you're a die-hard sports enthusiast or whether you just want to impress your friends by knowing a little bit about the Cavs this season, we hope you'll enjoy this annual special edition. Inside, you'll find a rundown of men's basketball in the ACC for the 2008-09 season, as well as features about both the men's and women's teams at U.Va. Our sports writers really did their homework for this issue, interviewing athletes and coaches from across the ACC, so we hope you'll find the issue informative -- even if you don't agree with our predictions about how each team will perform this season.

Picking our pictures

When you pick up the print edition of The Cavalier Daily, one of the first things you see is what we call the "Weather Pic" — a photograph on the front page that's not directly related to any of the News stories.
In the past, you might have seen anything from a squirrel eating a Crunch bar to a cute trick-or-treater on the Lawn in this space. In general, we use the Weather Pic to liven up the News page with an artistic, active shot of life around Grounds. Some days the photo depicts standard occurrences on Grounds in an artistic way, while on other days, it may highlight a student performance or event that we are not able to cover in the form of a story.
If you have an idea of an event that could lead to an interesting photograph, be sure to let our News department know as soon as possible (and obviously in advance of the event) — we'll certainly consider all suggestions. And if we hear about two events that would both make great photos, we'll do our best to include both — one on the front page and one on the second page of News content.

Covering the Elections

We hope you'll take a moment to check out today's Cavalier Daily,
featuring election news ranging from local voter turnout to analysis
of the presidential election. Though The Cavalier Daily's News section
does not usually address national politics, we make an exception each
year for election-related coverage.
In order to provide you with the best election coverage we can — in
addition to giving some of our reporters valuable experience — The
Cavalier Daily sends reporters out of town each Election Day to gather
news relevant to our readers. This Election Day, we had reporters
stationed in Northern Virginia, Richmond and at the election night
events for congressional candidates Virgil Goode (R) and Tom Perriello
(D), gathering information from state and local politicians. Sending
reporters out of town may complicate our jobs, but we hope you'll
enjoy the result. And, of course, as with all of our news coverage, we
welcome your feedback.

Photo Essay

Missed trick-or-treating on the Lawn earlier today? Be sure to check out Monday's Cavalier Daily, either online or in print, for one of our favorite annual features: a photo essay with some of the cutest — and scariest — costumes modeled by local children!

Special Contributions

Though most Opinion columnists' thoughts appear weekly on the Opinion page, The Cavalier Daily also offers biweekly columns from a few special contributors.

What makes these contributors different from our normal columnists? Like normal columnists, special contributors are selected by the Opinion editors and the executive editor; however, they are not members of The Cavalier Daily's official staff and do not have to meet the same conflict of interest guidelines other columnists must follow. While normal Opinion columnists generally may not write about other organizations in which they participate, for example, biweekly special contributors may write about the community organizations in which they are involved and issues that affect them — so long as the columns do not simply turn into advertisements for certain groups or causes.

The Cavalier Daily currently has two special contributors: Brooke Howard from the Black Student Alliance and Carlos Oronce of the Minority Rights Coalition. We are open to incorporating more special contributors, so if you are interested in this type of position, we invite you to contact our executive editor, Daniel Colbert, to learn more.

Exploring C-ville

Looking for a way to spice up your life in Charlottesville — or see how the city has changed since your days at U.Va.? If so, we encourage you to check out The Cavalier Daily Life section. Though the Life section may not be the first thing you see when you pick up the paper (literally — you have to open the B-section to find it), we recommend you check it out to find both a variety of features about student and faculty life, but also biweekly features on topics ranging from food to travel.If you're looking for a new restaurant for a post-exam celebration or for your first trip back to C'ville in a while, take a look at our our Life page every other Wednesday; it typically features not only a review of a local restaurant (check out this week's review here), but also the latest information from the city about restaurant violations.

If you've got even more free time on your hands, every other Tuesday you can read about travel destinations both near and far, ranging from Virginia Beach to Turkey or France, where two of our columnists are studying abroad this fall.

And finally, if you're interested in meeting new people, check out Life's Community page every Friday, where you can learn more about various student organizations. Or, if you're really adventurous, e-mail the Life section to be considered for Love Connection, a biweekly blind date organized by The Cavalier Daily. So far, we have a pretty good record of making sure that people enjoy themselves on these dates. You too could find love through The Cavalier Daily! Whether you're a student, faculty member, alum or parent, we hope you'll make the most of your time in Charlottesville. There are many ways to enjoy the city, and the Life section looks forward to sharing more of these ways with you in the future.

Questionable Ads

The Cavalier Daily recently received a letter to the editor questioning our organization's decision to print a particular paid advertisement advertising a controversial speaker visiting Grounds. As you may know, The Cavalier Daily receives all of its operating funds through advertising revenue; however, we still apply standards to the types of advertisements we allow to appear in print.
Advertising policies are set each year by the Managing Board of The Cavalier Daily to ensure that the advertisements we print are consistent with The Cavalier Daily's mission. While we are willing to consider any advertisement submission, potential advertisers should be aware that under our current policies, advertisements related to certain topics including modeling and egg donation will not be permitted. Similarly, advertisements that contain untrue, libelous information do not serve our readers; thus we will not print them. Even if an advertisement does not fall into such a concretely specified category, all advertisements run at the discretion of The Cavalier Daily's Managing Board; so if an ads staffer identifies a potentially controversial ad, readers can be assured that the advertisement is considered carefully before it appears in print.
If you are considering running an advertisement in The Cavalier Daily — either in our Classified section or as a display ad — please be sure to contact a member of our advertising staff, who will be happy to work with you.

Fall Break

With much of the University community heading out of town for Fall Break, The Cavalier Daily will also be taking a short break from production. We will resume production on Wednesday when classes also resume, and you can look forward to catching up on all the latest University and Charlottesville news in Thursday's edition.

Introducing our ombudsman

If you turned to the Opinion page Wednesday, you may have noticed we have a new columnist, Tim Thornton. This columnist is not like all the rest, however: He earns a paycheck, he is not a University student, and he has a professional background in journalism. As our ombudsman, Tim is charged with the task of writing columns specifically relating to The Cavalier Daily and its operations.
If you haven't read Tim's first column, we recommend you check it out here to hear in his own words how he will serve readers. We encourage you to send him your questions and concerns about The Cavalier Daily and to continue reading his weekly column on Wednesdays.

A balancing act

When you turn to our Opinion page, one of the first things you're
likely to notice is a column on the left-hand side labeled "Our View."
The Cavalier Daily uses this space every day to express its official
viewpoint on a variety of issues ranging from Student Council
activities to University policies.
How does The Cavalier Daily determine what to discuss in this lead
editorial column? Our goal is to make the subject of this column
relevant to our community every day — which is why we rarely write
about national social or political issues that do not directly impact
the University community. Lead editorials often relate to something
that has recently been in the news, while sometimes the column addresses
a long-standing feature of our community that The Cavalier Daily
believes is worthy of discussion. (For an example of the latter, see
today's lead editorial about the role of school councils at the
University.)
Constructing the lead editorial is a complicated task. While the other
columns on a standard opinion page represent just one person's
opinion, the lead editorial reflects the viewpoint of The Cavalier
Daily as a whole. It would be impractical — if not impossible — to
poll each of our staff members every day on various topics being
considered for the lead editorial space; instead, The Cavalier Daily's
opinion is determined by the five members of The Cavalier Daily's
Managing Board. While majority approval of the Managing Board
technically is sufficient for a lead editorial to be published, the
board strives daily for full agreement on the positions outlined in
the lead editorial.
How, then, does this nuanced column find its way to print each day? The
Cavalier Daily's executive editor plays the most significant role in
the creation of the lead editorial. From proposing lead editorial
topics to conducting interviews relating to the selected topic to
writing the column, the executive editor is involved from start to
finish. The Managing Board gathers every evening to read the executive
editor's work aloud and to discuss any adjustments that need to be
made before the column appears before readers in print.
So the next time you read the lead editorial and wonder who's really
behind it — or who is crazy enough to support the viewpoint being
expressed — we hope you will recognize the amount of collaboration and
thought that goes into the creation of this daily portion of The
Cavalier Daily.

A local perspective

You've watched the debates on TV. You've read the national newspapers' coverage of the campaigns. But are you aware what's going on in the battleground state of Virginia this election season? This fall, The Cavalier Daily is offering readers an opportunity each week to take an in-depth look at Virginia politics.

If you haven't been reading our website daily, you may want to take a look back through a few of our recent politics-related features: we'd recommend this article about McCain and Obama's strategies for winning Virginia, this piece about Governor Tim Kaine's role in the Obama campaign and this article about the ongoing Senate race in Virginia. Finally, don't miss the opportunity to check out this CNN article about conservative student voters in Virginia written by our senior news associate editor, Shea Connelly.

In the upcoming weeks, stay tuned to The Cavalier Daily's website or print edition for a look back at Senator John Warner's concluding Senate career, an update on the General Assembly races and U.Va. professors' roles in informing the public during election season, among other topics. On the Opinion page, you can look forward to continued debate between representatives of the University Democrats and College Republicans. (Missed this week's guest columns by the two groups? Click here.) We hope to see readers remain active, as well, by submitting letters to the editor offering feedback on our coverage during this exciting political season.

Hoos for Housing?

If you usually read The Cavalier Daily online instead of picking up the print edition, we'd like to draw your attention today to The Cavalier Daily's annual housing supplement.

Whether you're a student thinking about where you'd like to live next year, a parent wondering whether your child is telling the truth about how much housing costs, or an alum wondering if your old apartment still exists, we hope you'll be able to find what you're looking for in the supplement, which you can view as a .pdf by clicking here, then clicking on the picture of our newspaper. We have tried to make this supplement useful to as many students as possible by featuring a variety of housing options, both on and off Grounds — though as always, The Cavalier Daily welcomes your feedback about how we can improve this service for students in future years.

Managing Money

When thinking about the staff it takes to produce a newspaper every day, you have no trouble identifying the obvious pieces of the puzzle: You've got to have writers to research articles, photographers to take pictures, designers to take care of page layout and editors to make sure everything happens on schedule. "Advertising representative" might not be the first thing to come to mind, but the advertising staff plays a critical role in The Cavalier Daily's operations.

Without a strong advertising staff, The Cavalier Daily simply couldn't exist — at least not in its current, independent state. We could gather as many talented writers, artists and editors as we wanted, but without the funds required to put a printed copy of the paper in your hands every day — or to purchase and maintain the servers that keep our website running — our goal of providing news to the U.Va. and Charlottesville community couldn't succeed.

Like the rest of The Cavalier Daily's staff, the advertising department is completely student-run, although a couple things make it unique. For example, ads representatives are not allowed to contribute any content to the newspaper. We adhere to this policy to protect our coverage from any bias that could be attributed to advertising revenue. We never want an ads staffer to find him- or herself feeling pressured or influenced by an advertiser to produce certain content or to present information in a certain way. What's the upside of this? Aside from decreasing the risk of bias appearing in our content, the next time you want to place an ad, you're sure to have the undivided attention of our ads staff. Whether you're trying to figure out how to use our online classified system or don't quite know what size ad would be best for you, let our advertising staff know and they'll be ready and willing to help.

Detailing our style

Ever wondered why The Cavalier Daily formats the phrase "Web site" in the (seemingly archaic) way you see in print every day? Or why we always refer to the University of Virginia solely as "the University?" If you read The Cavalier Daily regularly and carefully, you might notice that we have a standardized set of terminology for the topics we cover often.

Why does this attention to detail matter? Most readers probably have never noticed policies about particular word choices. That's exactly how we want it. Varying our terminology — for example, switching between "the Education School" and "the Curry School" — has the potential to confuse and distract readers.

Even if one particular writer maintains consistency in how he refers to a particular institution, person or other object, he might still have different style preferences from other CD staff members. Like most newspapers, The Cavalier Daily tries to keep style consistent from article to article, and we rely on a number of resources to make sure our style remains the same. For general issues, we turn to the most recent edition of the Associated Press Stylebook, which sets style standards for reporters around the world.

But, as all U.Va. students know, the University of Virginia has its own unique lingo. There are no "seniors" here, and there's also no "campus." For first-time writers (and even those who have been with The Cavalier Daily a long time), the correct terms can be difficult to remember. As a result, we have our own 75-page Cavalier Daily Stylebook and Reference Manual, which covers everything from the proper way to refer to the University's current president (don't forget his middle initial or the "III" at the end) to whether it's acceptable to abbreviate the names of fraternities and sororities in print (it's not).

Next time you pick up a copy of The Cavalier Daily or are checking out the news online, pay attention to the style rules you see being applied. We hope that you'll have to hunt for them — if we're applying the rules correctly, they shouldn't be distracting you from the broader content of the article you're reading.

Reporting on reporters

The Cavalier Daily usually is in the business of reporting — not making — the news. Thursday, however, the tables turned, if only for a short while.
With the 2008 presidential race seeming closer and closer by the day, a camera crew from the Today Show found itself on Grounds, filming a segment about the battleground state of Virginia. The crew turned to Cavalier Daily politics beat reporter Emily Poe to get the lowdown on the University's political atmosphere. If you're interested in hearing Emily's take on students' involvement in the election — or would like to hear from other University students and staff — be sure to tune in to the Today Show next Wednesday morning, when the segment is scheduled to air.

Going back in time

Continually published since 1890, The Cavalier Daily can be a useful source of information for more than just today's headlines. Students, faculty and others conducting research or interested in reading about the University's past can find what they're looking for in The Cavalier Daily's archives. Depending on what type of information you're looking for, there are a number of ways to access our previously published content.

Though still under construction, our Web site will soon be the easiest way to access information dating back to fall 1999. If you know exactly when the article you're looking for ran in the print edition, this information is already accessible by entering in a URL in the following format: http://www.cavalierdaily.com/1999-09-16. We know this is far from a convenient approach for most of you, though, so we're working to get our search function operating for our archived content as soon as possible. Though it may seem overwhelming to look through several years worth of archives for the information you're seeking, know that we're also looking into the feasibility of making our search function more specific, allowing visitors to choose whether they want to search through content from the past month, from the past year or from the past several years.

Until all of our website functionality is restored, though, how else can you access our archived content? If there's a particular article, comic or photo you're looking for, you can contact our operations manager, who oversees our archiving, and someone from our staff will help you get a photocopy from our print archives. Similarly, some of the University of Virginia's libraries also archive our content, including the Special Collections Library and Alderman Library.

We hope these resources will help you take advantage of the U.Va. and Virginia history we've covered over the years. Good luck in your search!

Making the News

With hundreds of CIOs on Grounds and thousands of students involved in all sorts of activities and service throughout the Charlottesville community, there's always something happening at the University. If The Cavalier Daily were to write an article about every club event or service project, the newspaper would probably be too heavy to lift each day — or at least too long to hold your interest. As a result, The Cavalier Daily constantly makes decisions about which events and activities to cover.

How do we determine what makes the front page and what gets a shout-out in one of our weekly calendars? The News section (we hope we don't have to tell you where to find this one) usually researches and writes about five stories each day about topics as different as state and national politics, Student Council referenda and crime in Charlottesville. Your organization's activity might be cool, but it's got to compete against all these other topics. In other words, it's got to stand out.

For example, if your organization hosts an annual fundraiser that typically nets $10,000 for a local charity, we think that's great. That being said, we most likely won't be able to feature it in the News section unless there's something that makes it stand out from past years' or other groups' fundraisers. Maybe you raised more money than a fundraiser on Grounds ever has before or you worked together with a large group of U.Va. organizations and departments to put on a big event or lecture series for the first time. If that's the case, you should definitely let our News editors know.

Even if your organization's activities may not qualify for coverage in article form on the News page, The Cavalier Daily reports on student activities in several other ways. The News page often has a couple of artistic photographs, accompanied by descriptive photo captions, showing readers glimpses of life around Grounds. These images range from shots of dance groups performing to the smiling faces of student organizations' new executive boards, so contact News if your group's activity could be covered through a photo — they'll try to send a photographer your way.

Another way that student organizations frequently get press coverage is through our Life page. Every Friday, Life's community-themed page features a University CIO that might otherwise be relatively unknown to the University community. If you think your group does something people would like to know about, drop Life an e-mail.

We hope you'll continue to let us know when a group you're involved with is doing something special. Though we may not be able to feature your group every time you e-mail us, perseverance helps — keep us posted on what you're up to and one of your group's activities might be featured in The Cavalier Daily.

Mark your calendars

If you're involved with any University CIO, University department or Charlottesville organization, you know about all the hard work that goes into organizing a lecture, cultural event or other activity. The Cavalier Daily can be a great venue to share information about your group's upcoming events and activities with others — if you know the right way to go about it. If you're hoping to publicize your upcoming event, there are three main ways to do it.

tableau, the Cav Daily's arts and entertainment section, runs a weekly calendar profiling upcoming arts-related events ... so if your band is performing at a cafe in C-ville or if your best friend is in an upcoming drama production, e-mail the tableau editors by Monday so your event can be considered for publication in the calendar we feature each Thursday.

Not into the arts but still doing something readers would be interested in? The Life section runs a calendar every Friday detailing upcoming events ranging from movie showings to lectures to anything else readers should check out. To suggest a topic for Friday's calendar, e-mail the Life editors by Tuesday.

Say you've submitted your event for consideration in the Life or tableau calendar, but you want to be 100% sure you get some pre-event publicity in the Cav Daily. Have you thought about purchasing an ad? You might think that buying an ad sounds expensive; with this in mind, we've designed our CIO Advertising Program to fit even a small CIO's budget. If your event is sponsored by a University department or local organization, think about asking them to fund an ad — you'll be surprised by how much funding is available. Special rates for University departments and non-profit organizations make it more affordable, too. If you want to know more, e-mail our advertising staff to decide what kind of advertising will be most effective for you, whether you're on a tight or a generous budget.

Now that you've got the pre-event publicity settled, you're already trying to figure out how to get post-event coverage of your group's activities, right? If so, stay tuned for the next entry about how we decide which events get post-event coverage in The Cavalier Daily.

Welcome to the University's Journalism School

Attention new students: It's not too late. Now that you've settled into classes and gotten used to your dorm and O-Hill food, why not try something new? The Cavalier Daily is a great place to learn things you can't find in a classroom at the University and to make great friends.

Don't have any journalism experience? That doesn't bother us. Most of us aren't even English majors — and besides, there's a lot you can get involved with at The Cavalier Daily other than writing. Whether you're interested in drawing, honing your layout and design skills, running a small company, or becoming the next Katie Couric (a Cav Daily alumna, by the way), you can find a place at The Cavalier Daily. (To check out a description of all the departments, click here.)

Still skeptical about whether The Cavalier Daily is right for you? The vast majority of positions on our staff have no application or tryout process, and most staffers come in with no journalism background — you'll pick up everything you need to know from other students on the staff. And if you're worried about the time commitment, don't be: If you come in to see what life is like as a staff writer, page designer, photography staffer or graphic artist, you haven't signed your life away in any sense. You can come in to contribute to your section once a month, once a week or daily — whatever suits your schedule and interest level. In fact, many staff members do just that; The Cavalier Daily is a great place to build a portfolio of articles, photographs, comics or page design.

So, what's stopping you now? E-mail recruit@cavalierdaily.com today or stop by our office in the basement of Newcomb Hall to get started. We hope to see you soon!

Welcome to our new Web site!

As you've discovered, our move into the 21st century (just a little bit late, right?) is allowing us to implement a number of new features and services, one of which is before your eyes. This space is intended to give you — a regular reader, a prospective staffer or a curious alum — a peek behind the scenes at what goes into the 12- to 20-page paper you can pick up each day or browse online.

If you check in here regularly, you'll find 2-3 new posts per week on topics ranging from how The Cavalier Daily chooses which topics find their way into print to how our writers and designers are supported by the often under-appreciated work of our advertising and IT staffs. If there's a topic you're itching to learn more about, just shoot an e-mail to meditor@cavalierdaily.com or leave a comment here at any time. Within the next week or so, we'll have a Cavalier Daily FAQs page up and running for your convenience.

Until next time, enjoy the new site! Your thoughts about it are welcome here or can be sent to webmaster@cavalierdaily.com.