Banner Headline

The first time that I met President Shapiro, in a briefing with other members of Spec at the beginning of the semester, the first question I asked was "Are you planning to step down?" It may have taken her two months, but we finally have an answer.

When The Crimson announced that Gilpin Faust would be Harvard's newest president, they ran a story patting themselves on the back for getting the news without the key players talking to them. The truth is that stories like this usually involve substantially less sleuthing than they may seem, and are generally the result of a helpful tip.

Thus was the case today. While we had been hearing rumors for months, we couldn't nail them down. And so this morning, one of our most-senior reporters--Kira Goldenberg--got an e-mail inviting her to a special meeting late tonight about a subject to be determined. The information of the meeting was embargoed, and Kira couldn't even tell me until 4:30, and when I swung by Barnard's PR office shortly thereafter, they wouldn't tell me what the news was.

A few thoughts. First off, a banner headline--one that cuts across the top of a page in all six columns--is a rare and exciting thing. We haven't had one all this year. Even Minutemen was only 4.5 columns. (A page is six columns wide.)

Second, the best way to report these stories is to flood the zone, but you also want to have point people run the thing. When we finally got the news, it became clear that we were going to want two stories--one news and one analysis. Today, I put Kira and Hayley Negrin as the main writers on our two top stories and had myself, Kaleigh Dumbach, and Melissa Repko making sure that nothing fell through the cracks.

Third... I couldn't be prouder of our coverage today. Kira's story, while straightforward, has all of the pertinent information, got all the right people, and has all of the quotes and background that we could have wanted. Hayley's story, though, is really something else. From a cold start, with just six hours of reporting, she got such incredible context and color that I can't help but smile, and her story came in as smooth as silk.

Banner headline days are always good days. If you see somebody who was involved in the issue, give him or her a pat on the back--we're all smiling today.

Bedtime.