'We're going to do so much better work if we are comparing notes'

Because you don’t need another American doom and gloom anecdote clogging up your inbox, here's something to lighten the mood.

Students at the University of Tennessee's The Daily Beacon took it upon themselves to collaborate with student journalists from several other universities to document the campus response to a series of swatting calls — false reports of on-campus shooters — that took place at the beginning of the semester.

"We needed to reach out to these other schools that had been hit,” Beacon editor-in-chief Caden Dyer said. “Like, what are other student media doing? I think … those connections and the relationships that we're forming with other people in like-minded scenarios are incredibly important, and we're going to do so much better work if we are comparing notes, comparing and contrasting situations, and then just forming these relationships with people who are going to be the leaders of student media in the future.”

The product of that collaboration launched last week with: Across universities, one threat: How schools alerted students during swatting incidents this fall. Dyer credited her entire editorial team, but especially managing editor Ansley Graves and news editor Patrick Busch. (And I’ll commend adviser Cheryl Welch for putting their work on my radar.)

Should you want to encourage your students to do some sort of collaboration, have them …

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