LOCAL REPORTERS WEIGH THEIR ROLE WHEN NEWS GOES NATIONAL

Over the weekend in Oxford, MS, political protests sparked eight basketball players to take a knee during the national anthem.

The reporters that worked on the stories found themselves amidst not only local stories, but also national news. These local reporters weight in on their role in sharing the news.

“My job as I see it is just to tell folks what happened and then they can figure out whether they are offended by that or not, or whether that created a bigger firestorm or not,” freelancer for the Associated Press Ronnie Morgan said.

Morgan is a sports reporter who filled in for another writer when covering the basketball game on Saturday. He ended up covering the kneeling of the players during the anthem. His article, Mississippi Players Kneel During Anthem in Response to Rally, was picked up by the New York Times and other major media outlets.

There were many other headlines about the events of the weekend that made both national and local news. Some of the headlines include: “‘Oxford is more than what these individuals came to represent’: Confederate rally met with counter-protests,” “They love the Rebel flag and are protesting at Ole Miss. Who is Confederate 901?” and “Ole Miss Basketball Players Take A Knee For Justice In Tough ‘Dixie’ Setting.”

Many of the narratives include the mention of Ole Miss’s race relations history. Morgan states that the university’s preexisting narrative is interesting because it is so affected by the events in 1962 where people died to integrate the school.

“On the one hand, we are probably held to an unfair standard because anything that does happen here related to race gets published nationally, but on the other hand we cannot really ignore the fact that that narrative is earned,” Morgan said.

Ole Miss narrative is not colored only by historical events. Alex McDaniel graduate from Ole Miss in 2010. She was an editor at the Daily Mississippian her senior year and she was editor of the Oxford Eagle until last year.

She stated that she has been following these kinds of issues for a long time, but now it is the students that lead the change.

“But the university today isn’t anything like the university was 20 years ago,” McDaniel said. “It’s sad the amount of work they have put in to redefine this place, and for groups to feel like they can come and stand their ground.”

She stated that she was moved by the coverage of the basketball players kneeling during the national anthem and the risk that the players took. She also states that she was glad that the national story was about the kneeling and not just about the fact that these groups were coming to campus.

“For way too long journalists have been led to believe that there are two extreme sides,” McDaniel said. “The problem with that is that not every side deserves equal weight. As journalists, it is our job to present fairly, but see that I didn’t say objectively. The truth is that no one is objective, but a good journalist can be fair and balance a story. It is not always about giving the wrong side a voice.”

McDaniel stated that she was proud of national news coverage because they did not give a platform to the crowd simply because they are coming and they hate people.

McDaniel points out that many people don’t stay to read the article and see that Ole Miss doesn’t welcome those things and that it often turns off potential students. That fact makes headlines more critical in writing.

“You want to tell someone what’s happening, but you don’t want it to be clickbait,” Oxford Eagle reporter Nathanael Gabler said.

Gabler wrote the article “Ole Miss stirs controversy with anthem kneeling, outlasts Georgia.”

“‘Stir controversy’ may not be the best, but it was what came to mind,” Gabler said. He said he wrote the story quickly to be able to send the information out quickly and creating headlines are just judgment calls.