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Things look so different up close.

I've been feeling that way this week as I watched the local media watching our campus. After two Ferrum College athletic programs were cut last week, we've been covered by camera crews from WDBJ and WSLS, Mark Berman and Jon Cawley of The Roanoke Times, and Steven Marsh of The Franklin News-Post. And those are just the ones I know about.

When you're this close to breaking news, here's what you notice: reporters get some things wrong, and the less familiar they are with the locale, the more they get wrong. Also, editors make some bad decisions, and the same principle applies there.

Here are some examples of mistakes reporters made in covering the cuts of the field hockey and equestrian teams:

Jon Cawley, who came down Tuesday afternoon to cover a student-led rally to support the teams, misspelled our Student Government Association President's name. It's John Liffert, not Laffert. I know of a journalism teacher who gave an automatic "F" for misspelling a name. Picky, you might say, but there's no excuse for it. I tell my students, "Even if it's Smith, tell 'em to spell it."

Two students interviewed by The Roanoke Times said they were misquoted (and I only asked two): Liffert and field hockey player Wendy Garrett. Liffert was quoted by Cawley as saying that the Ferrum College administration has a "dated outlook." Liffert told me he made that comment in response to the question, "How do students feel about the administration?" This is no petty distinction -- attributing to one student, whose name is given, an attitude which he ascribed to his fellow students in a general sense. Keep in mind that Liffert works regularly with the college's president and vice presidents in his role as Student Government Association president, and you'll see how this misunderstanding could land him in hot water.

Garrett told me Mark Berman exaggerated her comment about transferring out: "I'm not very happy. I'm transferring." According to Garrett, what she actually said was that she'd thought of transferring but probably wouldn't for fear of losing credits. Sounds like Berman might have heard a main clause and missed a qualifier.

In WDBJ-7's story about the student rally (Tuesday on the 11 p.m. broadcast), anchor Jean Jadhon introduced it with the announcement that Ferrum had cut its hockey team. I'm afraid Adams Lake doesn't freeze over often enough for us to save any money by selling off the Zamboni. I'm sure Jadhon just misspoke, but how is anyone who just moved here from Massachusetts to know that?

In contrast, Franklin News-Post Sports Editor Steven Marsh's first article about the cuts, "Ferrum opts for a new direction in athletics" (Feb. 25), contained no factual errors that I could spot and excelled in several ways.

Here's a good example of the superiority of Marsh's initial news article over Berman's. In attempting to describe the equestrian team's recent successes, Berman wrote that "last spring, the Panthers finished fifth at the sixth-team regional." This would give the impression, to anyone not familiar with that program, that the team may have been cut for poor performance.

No such inference could be further from the truth. As Marsh noted, Ferrum rider Lisa Dye and former rider Sarah Pedersen have held the national reserve championship two years running.

In addition, Marsh's article stuck closer to the facts of the decision, quoting Ferrum Director of Athletics Ted Kinder and Sports Information Director Gary Holden. Berman, on the other hand, quoted AnneMarie Pelliccio, head field hockey coach, and implied that he had talked with Jane Flynn, equestrian coach. For the most part, though, he quoted members of both teams: two riders and two field hockey players. Oddly, he even quoted men's basketball coach Larry Mangino, who is unrelated to the decision, except as a potential beneficiary of reallocation. I don't mean to suggest that it's wrong to interview players on the teams affected. However, that seems an issue perhaps better handled in a sidebar. Or, if player reaction is included, it should certainly be balanced by input from those involved in the decision. Berman quoted only Ferrum president Jerry Boone, who was reticent. He did not quote Athletic Director Kinder. He did not quote Gary Holden. He did not quote the dean, who oversees athletics. It's hard not to see Berman's choices as sensationalizing the story somewhat by amplifying the conflict angle.

Marsh, on the other hand, stuck to facts. Perhaps his proximity to the college and the frequency of his visits would lead him to minimize the controversial aspects. He certainly didn't soft-pedal the story, though. He wrote, "Ferrum field hockey and women's lacrosse coach Anne Marie Pelliccio, equestrian coach Jane Flynn and stable manager Idella Krepelka will lose their jobs in the transition." The facts don't get much colder and harder than that.

Marsh also got Ted Kinder on the record in what seems to me a very honest admission: "It appears we could have made a poor decision in establishing (field hockey) . . . Our resources are spread too thin."

The News-Post's coverage also included an event no one but Marsh and The Iron Blade staff got on the record. Because he pays close attention to our campus, Marsh was also here on Thursday, Feb. 24, for a student protest during the Dixie Conference men's basketball tournament. He gave an accurate account of the students' response, balanced against information about how money from the cuts will be used.

The only fault I could find with Marsh's recent stories was a statement that came out slightly too comprehensive: "None of the affected athletes and students has tried to vilify the teams which will receive the enhancements." Marsh might know that no player or student has tried to vilify the beneficiaries IN PUBLIC, but he does not know what they say in private. That's a classic example of why wording is so critical in journalism.

In general, Marsh's coverage implies, "I know these people personally, and I'm close to this situation. Marsh is probably on our campus at least once a week. He's been with The News-Post a long time and knows our campus. He knows the history of these programs. (To be fair, though, he has fewer programs to be familiar with than The Roanoke Times's sports staff does.) Aside from how our recent news was reported, I also saw some questionable editorial decisions. WSLS's initial story on the cuts spent far more time on the field hockey team, despite the fact that the equestrian team has been here nearly 20 years (in its current incarnation) and achieved far more success recently. After a long segment with field hockey players, the WSLS segment showed us only about five seconds of a horse and rider.

The editing decision which bothered me most, though, was The Roanoke Times' selection of photos to accompany the rally story. They chose three and featured a large one of three students, two in cowboy hats. Directly below it was another photo of a single student waving her cowboy hat. That's three cowboy hats on the front page of the Virginia section. The whole layout made me want to shout "Yahoo!"

Don't get me wrong: I don't have anything against cowboy hats or people who wear them. I just think the editor's (or editors') selection and arrangement of these photos suggest that the paper may have an impression of our school which is severely limited. There's a BIG difference between cowboys and equestrians. Will I ever see three cowboy hats featured in an article about an equitation event at Hollins?

My disappointment about this is largely based on the fact that The Roanoke Times had far better choices. The rally was about two sports teams, yet no athlete or coach from either team was pictured, despite their prominence at the event. The paper had wide access to horses and riders, who moved freely around the periphery of the crowd for over half an hour before the march began. As one of my Iron Blade editors said a few years ago, "Horses sure are photogenic." If you'd like to see some of ours (and the people who ride them), e-mail me and I'll send you some of the dozens our Iron Blade photographers took.

A far better photo was the one they stuck inside the paper, where the story continued on page 5. This one showed a crowd of students marching down the main campus sidewalk toward the administration building and the president's home. It was extremely good and representative of the event.

In studying media coverage of school shootings last fall, I learned that many industry analysts gave highest praise to the "local-est" papers. The Denver Post won wide acclaim for its coverage of the Columbine High School shooting, and the Jonesborough, Arkansas, paper was praised for its stories about the shooting in that community. National media coverage was more impersonal and, despite greater resources, often less comprehensive.

The events of this last week have given me more insight into why these generalizations are true. They've also made me wonder how often reporters make mistakes and editors make bad decisions, all of which slip right past the majority of us. Such mistakes may be apparent only when we're very close to the news, and spotting them erodes our general confidence in the media. When that happens, we're often too close for comfort.