Moon over Madison

Apologies first of all for having let this blog run dry for a few days. I’ve been in relative seclusion studying for the LSATs, and am glad to see that Mark, Tim and Brad apparently managed to at least keep some of the feedback here lively while I was off cramming logic games. (Thanks, guys!)

A good bit has happened both nationally and locally over the past few days – there is a new Chief Justice of the United States and a Madison PACE meeting managed to venture into some rather tense realms as Halloween and related policies were debated. As follow up is appropriate (there should be a new Supreme Court nominee before long and Halloween is now less than a month away), I will share some thoughts. But for now, I wanted to touch on a rather excellent piece running in the current edition of Coreweekly (despite the local weekly having a website, this particular piece isn’t online, so pardon the lack of a direct link).

The article deals superficially with the fall of Bob D’Angelo – the man who went from being Madison’s top theatre honcho, running the Overture Center, to an accused sexual harasser with more alleged victims filing charges than major productions coming to State Street. But the piece, which is masterfully scribed, is really a touch more about journalism. It is a firsthand account of ten years spent hunting the D’Angelo story, the on-and-off encounters with sources a touch too shy to go on the record and the final days of Mr. D’Angelo’s reign atop the theater.

Perhaps most fascinatingly, the article spends a decent amount of ink discussing conversations held between the author and another local journalist working for a different (but not necessarily competing) publication. Conversations like these are not as rare as many would think, but are perhaps the most background-centric part of a newsroom – that ultimate utilization of a source that is rarely referenced in print and almost never named at all.

The piece also delves into the frustrations of knowing a story to be true, hunting down its elements and still not being able to go to press with it. As the Coreweekly column points out, journalists almost always know more than they print and, yes, it is oftentimes supremely aggravating.

The tale of Mr. D’Angelo is merely an anecdote. There are several stories buzzing about Madison at the moment – allegations known to be facts throughout local newsrooms – that have not seen ink yet. And some of them likely never will. There are also stories half-told – puzzles shares with readers even though authors know the final assemblage of their pieces by heart.

Newsrooms are strange places – even on the collegiate level – and it is interesting to see this rare peak into that question of what merits a rolling of the presses.

Is this a reason to not trust the media? Far from. It is actually good cause to lend that extra modicum of credence to those stories that do hit the presses.

The only suspicious thing is that a Coreweekly columnist would share all of this so bluntly.