Opinion: Telling local stories — on Kansas college campuses and elsewhere — demands elusive courage

“I should write about that,” I said to my wife as we walked through our Leawood neighborhood a few weeks ago. 

“Yeah,” she agreed. “You should.”

With our dog leading the way, we had just walked past a front yard decorated for Halloween — but with a bizarre political twist. Fake cemetery headstones jutted from the lawn, draped with decorative spiderwebs. Halloween-themed lighting gave the front of the house a spooky glow. 

At the far end of the yard, arranged MacBeth-style, three yard ornament witches encircled a decorative cauldron. The cauldron was labeled: “Cornell 7.” 

Halloween is a dark holiday, I told my wife, but a diorama to alleged college gang rape in your front yard? That is somehow more sinister than skeletons and headstones.

In the same front yard were other Halloween figures propped up on the lawn. One of them held a “No Kings” protest sign, denouncing facism.

In our pocket of Johnson County where we walk our goldendoodle (almost too on-the-nose), the decorations stood out as a unique blend of festive and political. What was the homeowner thinking?

I told myself that I would circle back before my next deadline. This front yard deserved a column.

A national audience

The next bullet point on the projection screen read: “Local. Local. Local.” 

Earnest students — from Texas, Iowa, California and at least a dozen other states — scribbled down my advice last week at the College Media Association’s national convention in Kansas City, Missouri.

More than 1,000 students, according to organizers of the event, gathered to hear presentations from college instructors like me, along with professional journalists and academic researchers. According to the event’s app, Kansas student journalists and faculty attended from Washburn University, Wichita State University, Kansas State University, Johnson County Community College, McPherson College, Cowley College and the University of Kansas, where I teach.

The topic I chose for my second session was about this. Literally this: the columns I write for Kansas Reflector. Many collegiate publications have opinion sections and opinion editors, voicing the heartfelt beliefs of the young people on their staffs.

For these college audiences, I always deliver the advice of writing locally. In decades of reading high school and college journalism and judging it for awards, I know what to expect. Students often aim the fire hydrant of their commentary at national news.

The most recent blockbuster Hollywood movie. The hot new pop album by everyone’s favorite starlet. Hot takes on national professional sports. Opinions on international issues. And so, so, so much national politics.

The donut hole that is so often missing? Commentary about what is happening on campus.

On the websites for many college publications, it’s almost impossible to find out how people feel about their university, its spending, its policies, its classes, its sports and its campus life. Instead, the opinion sections read like less-polished, less-cogent and less-informed versions of, say, the New York Times opinion page.

“Why would I read your opinion on the latest Olivia Rodrigo album when the writers for national publications are better writers?” I asked at the convention.

Some nodded along. Others looked at me quizzically.

At the end of the session, I invited students to email me samples of their work. What I received from a handful of the students was inspiring in many ways. Some students were vulnerable, telling wrenching personal anecdotes. Other students dove into controversy, tackling divisive political issues. (It turns out, unsurprisingly, that college journalists don’t love MAGA politics.)

Only one of the columns, however, directly addressed a campus debate: should a retrograde misogynist who is consumed with personal appearance be allowed to appear on UCLA’s campus? The student bravely took a stand: “The university should not have allowed” the social media bully “to protest on its grounds.”

This is the part of my column where I could write something thoughtlessly generational about how contemporary students are uniquely backing down from writing about local controversy. “College students these days …” But I don’t believe that. 

Writing about local politics has always been challenging. After all, we’ve been swimming in nonstop national news for decades: daily national newspapers like USA Today, broadcast news each evening, cable news like CNN, talk radio like Rush Limbaugh and more.

The buffet of topics — Bill Clinton’s infidelity, George W. Bush’s rush to war, Barack Obama’s quietly aggressive immigration policy — has been alluringly convenient for writers who should be focused more locally because the national stories are constantly shoveled toward us.

Local commentary, however, often means doing the research yourself. As college instructors, we beg students to leave their dorm rooms, meet people, explore areas of town away from campus. Be there in person and describe what you see locally.

Right next door

If not local, the coverage of Kansas Reflector is stubbornly statewide. I can’t count the number of times I have pitched a story to my exceptional opinion editor Clay Wirestone to have him reply with something like: “Remember that our focus is Kansas.”

Sometimes that means deleting a column idea completely. Other times it means doing extra research that narrows the focus to Kansas, which is our mission, after all.

Last night, I was thinking about my advice — my tone so confident and expert — to the student journalists in that hotel conference room last week. I was also replaying the emailed coaching that I had sent earlier in the day to the students who asked for critiques.

And then, dog leash in hand, I walked past that same house, the one with the political Halloween display. With all of the lights in the house off, it was far too late to ring the doorbell and ask about the Cornell 7. And, I told myself, the decorations weren’t even up anymore.

With that, a local story faded because it didn’t get the courage it deserved — not from a rookie college journalist but from me. Even the guy dispensing the supposedly expert advice sometimes needs an additional shot of courage to knock on a neighbor’s door and tell a local story.

Eric Thomas teaches visual journalism and photojournalism at the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.