The staff of the Vermont Cynic gathered before him, Eric Lipton, UVM alumnus and investigative reporter for the New York Times, asked the editors of the student newspaper how they come up with their story ideas.
Junior Charlotte Fisher, editor of the Life section, conceives most of the feature stories for the university newspaper on her own. But with Lipton at her disposal Saturday during a seminar with the staff of the campus weekly he once ran as editor-in-chief, she didn’t miss the chance to pick the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner’s brain.
“I’d like to get my writers to come up with story ideas, so if you have any advice on how to do that,” Fisher trailed off.
Lipton, indeed, had plenty of thoughts to share with the 25 Cynic staffers. During the four-hour seminar, he provided tips on how to best use the front page, where to find documents and when to delve deeper to get more information.
“Generally speaking, you need to step back and, whenever there’s something happening on campus, ask what’s the story behind the story,” he said.
A philosophy major who graduated in 1987, Lipton praised the Cynic as a great training ground for his own career. He mined his first documents at UVM, wrote his first front-page stories there and made mistakes that he wouldn’t make again.
In April, Lipton won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting for his series of articles about the lobbyists and lawyers who pay for access to state attorneys general in hopes of influencing legal and regulatory decisions in favor of their corporate clients. Lipton reflected on those stories Monday evening at the Davis Center during a public talk entitled “Lobbying in America: White Hats, State Troopers, Ski Resorts and Buckets of Money.”
His Burlington visit also included a session with Vermont journalists and guest lectures in UVM English and political science classes.
“This is probably one of the best opportunities we can get” to learn from an accomplished professional, junior Jacob Holzman, said of the afternoon with Lipton. Holzman is the Cynic’s Enterprise editor, a new section of the paper dedicated to in-depth stories that the paper’s staff unearths. One major Cynic investigation published in the section -- about Sodexo, the hospitality company that manages UVM’s cafeterias, and its treatment of workers -- was recently named a finalist for 2015 Story of the Year by the Associated Collegiate Press.
The paper has come a long way, Lipton assured the students, particularly in recent issues. He complimented the clean design, innovative website and addition of the enterprise section, though he contended that many in-depth stories would merit better play on the newspaper’s front page.
He also went down a list of Cynic stories with suggestions for improvements. A recent feature about students living in the Sheraton Burlington Hotel & Conference Center, he said, took the right approach but needed more reporting and detail and answers to questions such as how much the arrangement is costing the university. The paper, he said, should also closely cover the decisions and activities of UVM President Thomas Sullivan and the board of trustees.
“They’re essentially your Obama and Congress,” he said. “There are so many things that they do that affect students.”
The Cynic’s top editors welcomed the feedback as validation of their efforts. Cynic staff members, who squeeze the full-time job of putting out a newspaper between their class work, rarely have the spare time to gather and talk about what they do and how they can do it better, said Cory Dawson, editor-in-chief.
At UVM, these students learn their craft without a dedicated program or major in journalism. Dawson, a senior, said he believes his political science major will serve him as well as a journalism degree -- if Lipton is any indication.
Many Cynic alumni have found success in and out of journalism, Lipton told the students. As example, he invited Josh Prince, president of the CDM Group, one of the world’s largest medical and pharmaceutical advertising firms, to join the seminar via Skype to talk about social media and marketing.
Prince suggested ways that Facebook, Twitter and Instagram could help the Cynic draw extra attention for its work. The Times now requires reporters to tweet about their stories, Lipton said.
Social media expertise is in great demand in newsrooms and elsewhere, providing even more job options for journalists with those skills. “We have a hard time keeping those people at the Times,” Lipton said.
That evening, seminar finished, Lipton took to Twitter to share some parting words of encouragement to the students:
