8
Thursday, May 18, 2015
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.
OPINION
ACROSS
1 Halloween
costume that
may involve a
red cape and tail
6 Respected men
10 Banana Boat
initials
13 “I Fall to Pieces”
singer
14 “America’s
FLAVORite
Frozen Beverage
since 1967”
15 Considerable
age
17 Words requesting
a pass
19 Apple choice
20 “Phooey!”
21 Words indicating
a pass
23 Prof’s aides
24 Cardio chart
26 Overly
27 Team with 121
medals at the Rio
Olympics
28 Throw water on
30 Put the kibosh on
32 Before, once
36 Genetic material
37 Cantaloupe and
honeydew
39 Words
constituting a
pass
42 Infomercial
staples
43 Tack on
44 “I almost forgot ... ”
45 “I’m extremely
interested in
squalor” speaker
of literature
46 Ripoff
48 “Viva __ Vegas”
49 Homer stat
51 Camera inits.
52 Hrs. at Coors
Field games
55 Words printed on
a pass
58 Childcare worker
60 Nullify
61 Words seen in a
pass
63 View from a pew
64 Dalí house
65 Great Lakes
natives
66 That, in Tijuana
67 URL starter
68 Holding
corporation that
owns Kmart
DOWN
1 Get moving
2 Dominant
3 Levels in a park
4 Gunn of “Sully”
5 Like matryoshka
dolls
6 Kim, to Khloé
Kardashian
7 Offer of help
8 Faraway
9 Take care of
10 It often spans
decades
11 Egg roll cooking
medium
12 Pete Seeger’s
forte
16 Rocket launcher
18 Chaperones
22 Emulate a news
helicopter
25 Tries hard (for)
29 Doctor’s request
31 Disney character
who sings “Let It
Go”
32 Curved letter
33 Ali ring
trademark
34 Simply Cocoa
maker
35 Other people
37 Splash guard
38 __-Cat
40 Frost advisory,
e.g.
41 Poetic paeans
46 Doughboy’s
helmet
47 Peace offerings
48 Soap brand with
volcanic pumice
50 Big name in
kitchen appliances
52 Two-time French
Open winner
Sharapova
53 Sunken ship
explorer
54 Long lock
56 Creative flash
57 __ China Sea
59 Untainted
62 Genre using
speakers?
By C.C. Burnikel
©2017 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
05/18/17
05/18/17
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
RELEASE DATE– Thursday, May 18, 2017
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
xwordeditor@aol.com
Classifieds
Call: #734-418-4115
Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com
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FREE TIME
Balancing relevance with salience
W
hen a story first
breaks,
every
newspaper,
television station and magazine
rushes to cover it. There’s a big
to-do about it for a few weeks,
with round-the-clock coverage
that attempts to get at a story
from
all
angles.
Something
big has just been exposed and
everyone wants to be the among
the first to cover the story. But
then the next story breaks and
we’re onto new headlines. And
while
reporters
continue
to
cover stories no longer making
headlines, and organizations are
created to bring justice to those
whom it affected, for the most
part, these stories are old news.
When the Flint water crisis story
broke — though it began arguably
long before the story made it to the
public — it was all over the news.
You couldn’t flip to a newscast
and see anything but the story’s
developments. Overtime, however,
media attention dissipated, and
so did everyday conversations. As
much as I don’t like to admit it, my
mind certainly began to drift to
other breaking events.
But after talking about the
Flint water crisis in class, I did
some Googling and found that the
Michigan Civil Rights Commission
issued a report in February of
2017, naming “systemic racism”
as the reason why the Flint crisis
happened and why it went on for
so long. As one of the Editorial
Page Editors of the Michigan
Daily, I thought that it would be
an important thing to discuss
with our Editorial Board. But as
February turned into March, and
March into April, and other issues
on campus took priority, concerns
about how relevant an editorial
about the Flint water crisis would
be became significant.
We never ended up writing an
editorial on it, but it got me thinking
and there were nights I would lay
awake, wishing, even weeks and
months after the report was issued,
that we’d talked about it. Reflecting,
I realize that learning to strike a
balance between making sure what
we are talking about is current
and not forgetting to talk about
something that will be constantly
important, is something I struggle
with as an Editorial Page Editor.
More broadly, it made me think a lot
about society’s tendency to forget
about some issues as new “breaking
news” surfaces.
News organizations structure
their newscasts and lay out their
print pages with their readership
as a top priority. Stories they think
the general public will think are
most important go in the most
prominent spots on the page. The
stories that get the most views will
go first in the broadcast. Therefore,
it would be almost impossible to
ask for change at an organizational
level, when, and rightfully so, they
must appeal to the interests of the
general public.
Wanting to keep takes “fresh”
and making sure the stories we
are publishing are “relevant” are
two main journalistic goals, and
important ones at that. In the
Opinion section, we must constantly
make hard decisions about what we
are going to write editorials about.
I fully recognize constraints that
reporters and news organizations
are under. Some stories push others
to the back burner, and to attract
viewers, you can’t have the same
stories over and over again. But
just because something such as a
new report about Flint, is no longer
making front-page news, it doesn’t
mean we no longer need to discuss it.
The change we seek will not
come from news media alone.
And while I believe it is important
for the news media to constantly
reevaluate how they handle tough
stories, as a society, we must push
back against the need for “relevancy”
as we see it now. Society is frequently
looking to answer the question
“what’s next?”, and “moving on”
is a mantra drilled into our heads.
But I encourage us to ponder, just a
moment longer, when someone tells
you something is no longer relevant,
or it’s too late or we should move on.
The Flint water crisis, and events of
this magnitude, are all too important
to become issues of the past. This
crisis, in particular, has permanently
changed the lives of Flint residents
who still struggle to obtain clean
drinking water, whose children have
been exposed to lead and must now
grapple with the severe long term
health effects.
The news media and society
as a whole need to begin to think
more consciously about what are
we sacrificing by feeding into our
desire for short soundbites when
these events deserve lengthier
discussions. We need to continue
to pay attention to them even after
we have seemingly “moved on” to
another story, especially when
it is something as important as
the Flint water crisis. Otherwise
we will continue to perpetuate a
cycle that allows critical issues to
get left behind.
—Anna Polumbo-Levy can be
reached annapl@umich.edu.
I encourage us to
ponder, just a moment
longer, when someone
tells you something is
no longer relevant
ANNA POLUMBO-LEVY| COLUMN