E-Media Tidbits

This morning I happened to be reading the print version of the daily Fort Collins Coloradoan, and I was surprised by the main above-the-fold headline on page A1: "Net sheds light on finalists: Résumés for PSD's top job don't tell whole story," by Stacy Nick. Basically, the Poudre School District (which includes the city of Fort Collins) is seeking a new superintendent, and three finalists have been named. Apparently, Fort Collins resident Bill McCall Googled each of the finalists, and learned some details that do not appear on their résumés -- namely, that all three finalists also are finalists in other communities' superintendent searches. Also, two of the three are retiring or have retired from their districts, and one has had two recent school controversies regarding random drug testing and free-speech issues. McCall tipped off the Coloradoan about his findings, and thus this story was born.

I find this coverage odd in several ways, all of which are magnified by the prominent play the editors chose to give this story. For instance, this story seems to imply that the idea of searching the Internet for information on candidates for a prominent public job is particularly novel or clever. I'd assumed that such searches would be standard journalism practice by now. Also, it seems especially odd that the Coloradoan would choose to play up in the story's lead that the Google search was a reader's idea, not their own. I don't think that necessarily portrays the paper's awareness of the current media scene in a good light. Most importantly, the story omits any context for the findings -- such as, is it at all unusual for superintendent candidates to apply for multiple jobs simultaneously, or to have retired from previous positions? That is, are these search results significant enough to qualify as news? It seems to me that more context might have yielded a valuable story.