Inauguration story lacked specifics

The inauguration of a new president at one of our local colleges would seem to be a fairly significant event, worthy of the presence of a Gazette reporter.

The striking photo in the Sept. 27 edition of Mount Mercy University President Laurie Hamen shows that your photographer was at the event. It is not as clear from the accompanying news story that your reporter was there.

A reader could find a couple of paragraphs of previously available biographical material in the middle of the report, but no excerpts from Hamen's address, no quotations from any interview with her and no general description of the ceremony. And even that biographical data was sandwiched between retrospective accounts about the previous president, pulled from your archives, which opened and closed the piece. Really? Was that appropriate? On this occasion? Shouldn't the focus have stayed on Hamen and her vision for the future of Mount Mercy?

The Gazette can and usually does exhibit a surer sense of propriety than it did in this case. This was a lapse.

Jim Dunnigan

Cedar Rapids