 "Photo: Lauren Howland")
Krista Diamond had every intention of going to Libby’s before she lost power last Thursday night. But when she walked into her apartment and saw her roommates huddled around a candle, drinking beer, she willingly changed her plans.
“It was actually pretty nice sitting in the dark with my friends just having a conversation instead of watching TV or listening to bad music at Libby’s,” said Diamond.
Diamond and her roommates, of Main Street in Newmarket, were part of the estimated 330,000 Public Service of New Hampshire (PSNH) customers, who lost power due to last week’s storm. Newmarket, however, was one of the hardest towns hit by the storm, which left its entire population, about 9,000 people, without power, according to Mark Pelczar, dispatch supervisor for the Newmarket Police Department.
Instead of worrying about falling trees and spoiling food, Diamond and others in
Newmarket embraced the blackout by making necessary accommodations. She said they even enjoyed the lack of technology.
Diamond, a senior English major who doesn’t have heat in her apartment otherwise, spent the first night of the blackout exploring Newmarket in the dark with her roommates.
“Our generation is so reliant on technology that we get distracted by computers and TV,” said Diamond. “We forget what it’s like to just be with each other.”
Diamond did say she missed her computer, though she somewhat enjoyed not having to worry about homework as a result.
“This semester has been academically stressful, and the lack of power gave us all an excuse to relax,” said Diamond.
Craig Kowalchuk, a resident of Newmarket, spent his first night without power huddled around candles and a fireplace in his apartment. Kowalchuk, a senior history major, had been watching a movie with his roommates when the power went out.
“I turned back on the T.V. and just as I pressed play everything went out again, this time for good,” said Kowalchuk.
The outage, however, forced Kowalchuk to finish his homework on campus, instead of sleeping in his apartment, which he said he usually does, and watch the U.S. vs. Canada Olympic gold medal championship game on Sunday at Durham House Of Pizza (DHOP) with other blacked out families.
“I felt much more patriotic cheering on the players in a local pizza shop as opposed to sitting in my living room watching it with my roommates,” said Kowalchuk. “It was dismal outside but the smell of fresh pizza and sense of camaraderie between everyone there was a pleasant change to the woes of the weekend.”
Chris Simonton, a senior English major, also spent his first night in Newmarket without power huddled together with his roommates, but instead of basking in the warmth of a fire place, they savored the sounds of their own instruments.
“Fortunately, it doesn’t take electricity to bang on drums, strum an acoustic guitar or jam on a banjo, so we entertained ourselves by making music in the dark,” said Simonton, of Main Street in Newmarket.
Simonton, like Diamond, explored Newmarket in the dark and saw the power outage as an adventure.
“Honestly, though, we were all pretty content without electricity,” said Simonton. “We whipped out our headlamps and just had an adventure in the storm, walking around in the wind, scoping out downed trees and flooded waters.”
Simonton didn’t have to look far to find flooded waters. By the end of the storm, Simonton estimated that seven or so inches of rain water was “creeping up the stairs.” Him and his roommates didn’t keep much of anything in their basement, except for their furnace, which ran out of oil before the storm,
“Newmarket does, for the most part have electricity back, but this doesn’t really mean much for me,” said Simonton. “We still have no heat and it’s possible that our furnace sustained some damage sitting in half a foot of water for two days.”
While Simonton’s and Diamond’s power was restored, there are still 1,781 Newmarket PSNH customers without power, as of 11 a.m., Monday morning. For some residents who are a part of this number, like Kowalchuk, a warm shower and adequate heat may be as far away as Wednesday, according to the PSNH website.
13 comments
You're right, I don't know that this doesn't happen at the Globe or the Times, but I'll bet my secret identity it's frowned upon. First, it's lazy reporting to use your friends as sources instead of seeking out someone that doesn't cross the source/friend line. It's something that happens in first-year journalism classes, but shouldn't be allowable in professional publications.
Second, the SPJ Code of Ethics recommends that journalists "Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived." I'd say it's at least perceived here.
Finally, if a reporter does have a friend/colleague/roommate/pen pal/teacher that's a legitimate source for a story, I'd hope he or she is smart enough to (a) reveal the connection in the article or (b) pass it on to a colleague who doesn't have the same relationship. Doing neither damages the credibility of both the journalist and the organization.I know from experience that the friend/source relationship can be problematic. But I think it's best to be open about those relationship instead of trying to pass them off as coincidental or unimportant. On your second point, I agree with you about Krista, and would also add that active and vocal student leaders like her are more likely appear in the newspaper than other people. But she also has a significant history within the pages of TNH, so it's a little jarring to me to see her in the subject of a lede. I think that if a student chooses to become a reporter, they sacrifice a little of their ability to be the news. It's easy to say that athletes can't write about other athletes and Greeks can't write about other Greeks. But it gets more complicated when TNH starts to report on itself and its members (or in Krista's case, semi-regular former contributors). Acknowledging it, even it comes across as awkward, would probably stop people like me from complaining about it. @Anonymous 14:55
I think it's very unlikely that four members of a group would appear in an article not about that group by chance. Especially when the writer was a business manager for that group last year. Knowing that, it's obvious that Amanda knows these people through some kind of special, prior relationship and may have used that to write the article.I'm not saying that there's anything sinister going on here, IT IS just an article about a power outage in Newmarket. But I don't think it's a good practice for Amanda or TNH to get into. In the future, when relationships like this happen in an article, just acknowledge it in the article. There's nothing wrong with adding a little more truth.