[Vision2020] Media Watch

[Mark Solomon]

Hi Don,

What was interesting to me in the story (and the similar one in 
today's Daily News) was that enrollment was down at both UI and WSU. 
Makes me think that maybe something other than city council policies 
are at play despite the steady drumbeat of doom from the GMA.

Mark

At 5:44 PM -0800 1/30/07, Don Coombs wrote:
>A good lead on page 1 in this morning's Lewiston Trib:
>
>"The two land-grant universities on the Palouse have continued to 
>bleed students, according to head counts on the 10th day of spring 
>semester classes."
>
>The second graph said UI was down 595 students statewide from a year 
>ago, WSU down 406 on its Pullman campus.
>
>Then the newspaper zinged the UI gently in the third graph: 
>"Officials at UI chose to focus on new student numbers (which were 
>up), with no mention of decreasing enrollment in a news release."
>
>I think it would be a better use of public money if the UI issued 
>useful news releases, rather than trying to spin the news. The 
>double-digit percentage increase in new students is news, but 
>nowhere near as important as the total enrollment number. The news 
>story (and probably the news release) doesn't tell us how many new 
>students there are this semester or how many there were a year ago, 
>so a double-digit percentage increase may not be many students at 
>all.
>
>Later in the story we find that WSU's enrollment is 21,694 at its 
>four campuses, down 1 percent from a year ago. Nowhere in the story 
>do we find the total enrollment or the percent of change for the UI.
>
>Apparently the Trib came up with more information than what was in 
>the UI press release ("UI lost 595 students") but not the numbers 
>which would have made that information meaningful.
>
>Don Coombs