Community College Students Fight to Save Print Paper

Students at a California community college are fighting to save the print edition of the school’s student newspaper (and the class that produces it).  Their comments provide added ammo in the ongoing print-online fight.  

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Again, j-students and educators cite student readers’ preference for print news; the online edition’s status as a content provider read mostly by alumni; and the notion that a lack of print equals a lack of presence (and therefore a lack of relevance) on campus. 

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Check out related video below.

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Student Journalism “On Life Support” in UK

I promise to present some cheery news soon.  As it stands, the reports and asides coming in recently have competed for the title of bleakest.  The latest is awfully bloody bad news for student newspapers across the pond.  According to a new nationwide survey, campus papers in England are suffering crisis-level cash flow problems.

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Like every other part of the industry, ad revenue is not flowing in at anticipated levels.  The result: UK student newspapers printing fewer copies and at times cutting out entire issues to save money.

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According to the surveyors: “It remains to be seen whether student journalism can be sustained on life-support until the economy shows signs of recovery.  If it can’t, the student journalist may become a thing of the past.”

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J-Student Spotlight: Jake Donahue, North Idaho College, UWIRE 100

Jake Donahue loves Little League.  He has coached five Little League baseball, three basketball, and three soccer teams, amassing an above-.500 won-loss record and a not-so-secret desire to serve as a high school or small college athletic director.  He also just may be the country’s most talented young news designer.  

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Colleagues who served with him on The Sentinel at North Idaho College describe his design prowess as sheer innovative genius.  According to the paper’s news editor, “I have seen him do things with InDesign that I formerly did not know were possible.  Jake’s imagination in the process of design is unparalleled by anyone I have encountered in the industry.  Even the local paper in our area looks to our publication for design ideas. . . . He is truly a man amongst boys.” 

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The 24-year-old journalism major, who currently serves as Sentinel editor in chief, has a larger-than-life persona.  His personal blog is even called “The Jake” and features a reconfigured Hollywood sign that now screams “Jakewood.”  The reference is well-deserved.  His landmark journalism work in the past year alone exposed a drug scandal that led to the resignation of the NIC student union president and separately caused a heated debate on handicapped rights (and wrongs) at the university (see Q&A below).  

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For his über-design sense and sensability, his editorial gung-ho-ness, and his man-amongst-boys mystique, Donahue recently earned a spot on the vaunted UWIRE 100.  Today, he also rightfully takes his place in CMM’s “Student Journalist Spotlight.” 

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Sentinel editor in chief Jake Donahue poses with his fiancée.

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Write a six-word memoir of your student journalism experiences so far.

Writing works, editing helps- design dominates.

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What is the best piece of journalism advice you’ve ever received or given?

This quote is from Steve Jobs (Apple Computers).  I’ve had it blown up on a huge sheet on the wall above my computer monitor, and I’m pretty sure I look at it whenever I have a tough decision to make.  I’ve never been one to let the masses decide what I’m going to do, and I feel that The Sentinel has benefited from that mindset this past school year.  It’s worked so far: “Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes . . . the ones who see things differently- they’re not fond of rules.  You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things . . . they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world are the ones who do.”  [Editor’s Note: If you are not inspired after reading that, please change professions.] :)

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Memorable behind-the-scenes production moment.

The funniest (and by far, most memorable) moment in my journalism career happened during my stint as Sports Editor.  I had written countless sports columns on what I had thought were somewhat controversial matters, including how to hunt grouse from a moving truck- without spilling your beer; what it would be like if we could douse our Little League teams with steroids; and even comparing Johnny Damon to Jesus Christ and proclaiming that the sequel to “The Passion of the Christ” undoubtedly involved the Boston Red Sox.

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Those would all remain lackluster when compared to how I ended my stint that semester.  For most of the year I parked in a handicapped spot just outside the newsroom.  There were four handicapped spots empty ALL THE TIME, so I got away with it easily- until I finally got a ticket.  Bewildered, I penned an article titled: “If Handicaps Can Drive, They Can Walk 30 Feet.”  Holy Mother of God!  We received letters from the Disability Association of Coeur d’Alene, VFW, and the NIC Board of Trustees (some letters were even directed toward THEM concerning me!).  Our editor in chief then wrote an editorial stating that while “Jake Donahue is an ass and freely admits it,” she still felt obligated to publish my article, because while I had gotten a ticket that day, SHE parked right next to me without getting a ticket, sans a handicap permit! More letters poured in. . . . Our college even called me in for a meeting.  They recognized the fact that we cannot be censored, and thus formally asked me to write a retraction.  Well, I took that into account, but still wrote a follow-up: “Stuck on Handi-CAPS Lock.”  I didn’t come close to apologizing, but my two articles did spark a debate in the City Council on whether they have too many handicap parking spaces, or whether they are in the right places.  I like to think I won.

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What first sparked your passion for journalism?

It would be incredibly hard to pinpoint a certain moment.  I was deterred from journalism many, many times, but my current journalism advisor, the national guru known as Nils Rosdahl, is the greatest influence I’ve ever had.  Obviously over the span of a few years he alone has convinced me I’m on the right track- he’s also the one who’s shown me how to get where I want to go.

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What are your predictions for the future of college journalism?

I think it’s pretty obvious. As local dailies continue to shrink, and they focus more online-only, college papers are thriving.  Even their websites dominate.  Just look at The Daily Kansan.  They make tens of thousands of dollars by selling Jayhawk merchandise on their Web site, along with contests drawing thousands of entries (each a non-traditional money-making method newspapers are not known for).  I believe one reason that college newspapers thrive is their sheer dominance on campus: Everywhere you go, there is a free newspaper.  Keyword: FREE.  Especially since college students are broke, FREE is synonymous with success- no matter the material.

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Another amazing aspect about college is journalism is that we can attempt anything imaginable, and whether we succeed or fail, we’re still going to print another paper. Being able to take risks without worrying about the publishing company’s aftermath (nor the audience’s reaction), is the single greatest reason college papers will always exist, both in print and online.  . . . [W]e will weather through the current newspaper Armageddon unscathed.  We will obviously be tailoring an online presence to match the success of our printed product, but printed newspapers will last a long, long time on college campuses.

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What is one question we should all be asking much more often about the current state or future of journalism?

Is it worth it?  Sometimes we get stuck in traditional roles that worked long ago, such as charging a mere pittance for the paper (25, then 50 cents) while relying on advertising revenue to drive the wallets of our publisher.  Indeed, those tactics worked swimmingly decades ago, but what about now?  Rather than tossing in Web site advertising as a free premium add-on to a printed package, thus diminishing the value of what we now must rely on, we must solely focus on where the masses read the news: ONLINE.  It’s very easy to state what must be done, but I believe it will be incredibly difficult to transform the printed advertising mindset into an online force.  And whoever figures it out will become lavishly rich!

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You wake up in ten years. Where are you and what are you doing?

Probably still lying in bed if I just woke up . . . and hopefully working from home running my own magazine or (better yet!) publishing company.  Because although the future lies in online media, printed publications will never perish.

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Student Newspapers: “From Printing Press to the Morgue”?

According to the j-student shown below, the photo was taken in fun: half journalist, half-zombie, a sort of “Night of The Living Deadline.”

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The student is a staffer at The Ryersonian, a student newspaper at Toronto’s Ryerson University.  In a blog about the picture, she admits the spoof also contains a bit too much truth about a student print press that is stuck between life and death.  It is a journey, she writes, “from the printing press to the morgue“:

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Once upon a golden time, the average masthead was about 15 people strong. [Now, there are five staffers.] Granted, this was at a time when . . . online journalism and bloggers had yet to ravage the industry, making newspapers shift gears to Internet-based newspapers and mobile updates in a desperate bid to remain relevant and competitive. And students obviously following suit. Not that I mind this; I’m obviously a blogger. I’m interested in online journalism. It’s just that it makes life hell for the kids in the newspaper stream. The numbers are diminishing. Consequently, we each have at least two jobs (i.e. managing editor and photos), which kills the quality of our product. So hence the zombie.

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Journalist Tells J-Student: Get Out While You Still Can! :(

It is official: Journalists are telling j-students to STAY AWAY from the profession, for their own sake.  In a new “Help Wanted” blog for UWIRE, recent j-grad John Sutton writes that a former internship mentor is less-than-keen on his enthusiasm for joining the newspaper biz:

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Even one of my primary contacts in the job search, Mariel Hart, a Web producer for The Record, in Bergen County in New Jersey, where I interned last summer, has been encouraging me try and find jobs in another industry. When I met her for an alumni gathering in Syracuse she talked about how proud she was of another student for finding a job in public relations. She told me to not lose three years of my professional life to journalism– something I might be passionate about– only to leave.

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What do sentiments like this mean for students aspiring to be journalists? I admit, reading Sutton’s post depressed me more than most journapocalyptic statements and predictions.  (I’m officially laying claim to coining the term journapocalyptic.)

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A lot of us in academia endlessly spout out optimistic predictions about journalism’s future as a field in which many can maintain full-time jobs.  The truth is, while hoping for the best, we have no clue what is going to happen. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying or spewing an especially gaseous amount of BS.

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I do like Sutton’s resolve upon receiving the get-out-while-you-still-can advice: “[H]onestly, PR has no pull for me. I would not be happy there, it just isn’t for me.”  Maybe it will be resolve like this that will save the craft.  (Stop rolling your eyes– I’m trying to end on a positive note.)

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Daily Collegian News Adviser Fired, Penn State Alumni Livid

A note I just received from a trusted source with intimate knowledge of Penn State’s Daily Collegian, one of the best student papers within collegemediatopia:

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“Yesterday at 3:30 p.m., the [Daily Collegian‘s] longtime news adviser, John Harvey, was fired.  Most people seem to think this is a personal vendetta thing involving the newspaper’s General Manager Gerry Hamilton.  Within hours, word got out (we’re journalists, come on) and there is a growing Facebook group called Support John Harvey.  Alumni are livid, and it really puts the paper in a bad situation- you don’t want instability when you are already having financial problems.  It ruins the major fund-raising campaign we were starting, which had the goal of supporting scholarship grants to Collegian students.”

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The newspaper’s Alumni Interest Group (AIG) has already fired the first retaliatory shot, calling for a reinstatement of Harvey and a larger look at what are obviously some cracks in the paper’s decision-making structure:

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“The Daily Collegian AIG strongly protests the dismissal of Mr. John Harvey. The AIG board asks that the board of directors reverse John Harvey’s dismissal and, further, that the board of directors takes a more active role in overseein the Collegian‘s operations so that it can resume its proper role of educating and training student journalists.  The AIG board further asks that the board take a close look at the way the Collegian has been managed.  The Daily Collegian AIG will place a moratorium on its fundraising efforts in support of the Collegian until the AIG board is satisfied that Collegian Inc. is moving in a direction the AIG can support.”

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I’m working to find out more about the situation (anyone with info, please write me ASAP at dreimold@gmail.com).  I will say this at the outset, to the individual or group who canned Harvey: Anyone fortunate enough to hang a diploma bearing the initials PSU knows that The Daily Collegian has defined editorial excellence and zealousness for longer than Joe Paterno has been alive.   You better have a ridonkulously good reason for getting rid of a man (and an actual film star!) so respected by those who worked under him or you’re going to suffer the wrath of a thousand angry Collegianites.  They know how to use the media to their advantage.  They know how to uncover the truth.  And from the looks of it, they’re hungry.

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College Media Teachable Moment: What did Michael Phelps *Really* Say?

The video does not lie.  In video of a post-race interview with uber-Olympian Michael Phelps streaming at ESPN.com, Phelps offers a brief assessment of his performance.  The most interesting part of the video: The words uttered by Phelps on video and the words attributed to him in quotes in the story beneath it are not exactly the same.

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Check out the video for yourself.  When he starts to talk, listen but look simultaneously at the sixth paragraph in the story, the first featuring a quoted statement from Phelps.  You’ll notice that the differences between what Phelps actually says and what is quoted to him in the piece are small and do not impact the meaning of his statement, but they are there nonetheless.

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And that is OK.  The CMM Teachable Moment: Recognize as a j-student extraordinaire that it is NOT your job to capture every utterance and inflection exactly as a source provides it.  Doing so, especially without a recorder, would be murderous and leave you focusing on the insignificant details at the expense of the bigger picture i.e. what he/she is trying to say.  

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No reasonable reader or editor expects every-single-syllable perfection in a published quote.  In fact, in many cases, cleaning up a source’s comments HELP.  If we printed every ‘like’, ‘umm,’ ‘you know’ and the Obama ‘uhh’ readers would want to shoot us.  (After finishing this blog post, ask a friend a question and listen to him/her talk.  Believe me, all of us are flawed speakers, in many ways.)  

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The basic rules of thumb with quoting sources: Recant it as close as possible to the original.  Focus on key words or unique turns of phrase.  Do not put words into anyone’s mouth.  Feel OK with dropping the *small* extraneous speech pattern stuff.  But never never never change the meaning of what someone is saying.

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Harvard Crimson Staffers Avoiding Journalism Upon Graduation

The media and blogosphere have picked up on and overexuberantly parsed recent news that a majority of the graduating seniors sitting on The Harvard Crimson‘s executive board are NOT looking to pursue a journalism career.  Their collective decision is seemingly being heralded as yet one more small-scale sign that the journalism apocalypse is upon us.  

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For example, read this blather from Bloomberg: “The Harvard Crimson has produced 12 Pulitzer Prize winners and prepared generations of journalists for newspaper careers during its 136 years.  That wellspring of talent is drying up as the paper’s editors now shun the field.”

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That statement needs a cinematic soundtrack!  First, writing that the “wellspring of talent is drying up” based on the decisions of a mere 13 editors in a single year is more overblown than the current “Star Trek” hype.  Also, while of course it is each student editor’s decision, you can in no way put them in the active or evil villain role here.  This is not an action they are taking.  It is a reaction.  Journalism is shunning them.  There are less jobs, less promise of a fulfilling CAREER, and just in general an industry-wide we-have-no-clue-what-the-heck-is-going-to-happen-itis.

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The Crimson eds. are pragmatists.  A few are opting for law school or grad school and a few others are jumping into Teach for America.  Heck, maybe a few even still want to be journos and are hoping the print-new media-economic fight will be settled during their few years away getting a master’s or volunteering.  A few others will probably continue to impact journalism, just through non-full-time gigs freelancing or blogging.

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Just overall, this is NOT a sign of the j-apocalypse.  It’s a sign of the current economic, print-in-flux times.  Let’s also not forget: J-school enrollment is still climbing.  I previously passed along my top reasons for why this phenomenon exists.  Here’s one more, by a Poynter Institute rep, who notes that it may be because such a career path is now UNpragmatic: “To some young people, the turbulence itself is interesting, rather than off-putting.  We’re going through a period of reinvention and they want to be part of that.”

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College Media Teachable Moment: Maureen Dowd’s “Plagiarism”

Liberals are cringing and conservatives gallivanting with glee at the plagiarism charge being levied against New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd.  She has admitted that a paragraph-long sentence in her most recent column matches a sentence penned by a prominent Huffington Post blogger almost exactly.  

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She claims the mix-up came from a friend spouting the blog’s sentence to her without attributing it to the HuffPo blog.  Hmmmmm.  (I do NOT buy that excuse AT ALL.  She wants us to believe that in social conversation a friend recited a line to her memorized word-for-word from a blog, without mentioning it was from the blog, and then Dowd remembered that line basically word-for-word when writing her column later.  My dog ate my homework.) 

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The CMM Teachable Moment is not related to Dowd’s alleged miscue (the lesson there of course is obvious- don’t cheat!) but to an Editor & Publisher write-up on the incident.   The E&P piece, headlined in part “Maureen Dowd in Hot Water,” is well-written and objective overall.  Yet, it uses quote marks erroneously or at least in bad judgment around the word plagiarism in describing Dowd’s alleged action.  Here’s the short graf:

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But by mid-afternoon she was on the hot seat for using a paragraph almost word-for-word from one of the most prominent liberal bloggers, Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo, without attribution.  Charges of “plagiarism” ensued.

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Quote marks are powerful tools, at times expressing as much meaning as the words and phrases they surround.  In this case, the E&P article errs by making the plagiarism charges seem less real, serious or worthy of our consideration.  Make no mistake: Dowd’s misdeed is alleged plagiarism, unintentional or not.  Wikipedia lists a Random House dictionary definition calling it the “use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one’s own original work.”

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It’s all about context.  No reporter would ever put quotes around the charges in this scenario: Mary’s body was found Sunday morning in a ditch and John’s bloodied weapon was nearby.  Charges of “murder” ensued.  Or: Pictures of John naked with another woman were released Sunday, much to the dismay of his wife.  Charges of “cheating” ensued.

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The quote marks in both those cases, and in this Dowd case, make it sound like the accusers are making something up or striving to make a scurrilous charge stick.  Just like no one is yet calling our boy John a murderer or cheater in the above scenarios, no one is calling Dowd a plagiarist (yet).  She is being CHARGED with it or ACCUSED of it.  The act of which she is being accused, plagiarism, should stand on its own, without the “quotes.”

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Let that be a lesson to you. :)

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Collegemediatopia: A Comic Adventure, Episode #4

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Student Activism Site Offers Daily Glimpse Into Important Part of Campus Life

Student journalism and student activism have a long, tangled relationship- sort of like Sabretooth and Wolverine, without the gnarly teeth and Hugh Jackman’s pecs.  Anyone involved or interested in one should have a healthy respect for, and knowledge of, the other. 

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A few large-scale, chaotic, ending-with-arrests student protests have played out as of late on U.S. campuses.  In turn, there have been countless reports questioning whether they signal a return to ’60s-’70s-era undergrad dissension or a rebirth of the student activist.

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Those pieces make me vomit in my mouth mainly because they rest on two erroneous assumptions: 1) Student-initiated activism has been absent from campus life over the past 40 years.  2) Activism = only mega-huge street protests or out-of-control peace marches.  The truth is that activism has long been alive and well within academia, on the much-publicized and everyday levels. 

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In recent years, it has also been increasingly covered like a daily reporting beat. My favorite student activist beat blog:  StudentActivism.net.  This bad-boy is updated daily- even multiple times daily.  It is NOT an activist promoter or backed by a political org of any sort.  It’s written by an academic with a healthy passion for, and uber-knowledge about, student activism throughout history.  It has a nicely objective slant and periodically discusses the step-brotherly relationship between student activism and student journalism.   The headline of one recent related post, “Georgia Student Govt Slashes Funding of Student Paper that Mocked Frats.”

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Student Journalist Spotlight: Meredith Shiner, Duke Univ., UWIRE 100

Meredith Shiner is an über-sports-hound and Chi-town gal at heart.  In her words, “As an unapologetic White Sox fan who grew up in the northern suburbs of Chicago, my high school superlative was, ‘Most Likely to Start a Brawl at a Cubs/Sox Game.'”

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As a sports reporter, columnist, and editor at The Chronicle at Duke University, Shiner traded Chicago for Krzyzewskiville, Cameron Indoor, and Wallace Wade, covering every Blue Devil who could run, throw, and jump over the past four years and making a few standout memories along the way- “[f]rom a buzzer-beater in Cameron my sophomore year to exchanging e-mails with Reggie Love, getting a voicemail from Steve Spurrier and challenging Brian Zoubek to a game of Pop-A-Shot this year.”

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For her Pop-A-Shot prowess and all-star sports journalism, Shiner, 22, recently earned a much-deserved spot in the esteemed UWIRE 100, a listing of the absolute best of the best within collegemediatopia over the past year.  As one of her biggest fans, a Duke j-prof., wrote breathlessly about her: “What distinguishes Meredith from many other student journalists, especially those who concentrate in sports, is that she is a news omnivore.  In class, it was clear she reads and digests everything, from foreign news to election campaigns to features.  She inhales journalism, in other words, and has a natural instinct for news.” 

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For the latest edition of the CMM Student Journalist Spotlight, the world’s first “news omnivore” (quite possibly the coolest j-nickname EVER) reflects back on life as a j-student extraordinaire, now that she is “old, cynical and graduating.”

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Duke's Meredith Shiner playfully poses in the enemy's lair, the Dean Dome at UNC, before a Duke-UNC battle this past March.

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Write a six-word memoir of your student journalism experience.

Live for the deadline, sleep later.

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What is the best piece of journalism advice you’ve ever received or given?

When I was first elected sports editor of The Chronicle as a sophomore, I was excited to the point of being effusive about the job and the year ahead of me.  I’ll never forget that night when a top editor pulled me aside in the office and said, “If you like this job four days out of every five, you’ll be OK.”  I think that advice holds true not just for journalism, but also for whatever you do in college and beyond.  The most rewarding experiences are often the most challenging.  There are days when you’ll hate what you’re doing, particularly when you’re working 70 hours per week at a student paper and your friends are out being regular college students.  But on the whole, I wouldn’t trade my time at The Chronicle for anything in the world, and the tough days were just the small price I paid for all the great ones.

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Memorable behind-the-scenes production moment.

Sitting center court press row of Cameron Indoor Stadium for a Duke/UNC game has to be up there.  I was also a freshman when the Duke Lacrosse case broke.  Being in the newsroom as a major national news story grew into a media firestorm is something I hated as a student but learned immensely from as a journalist.  As the case evolved, I became more and more involved at The Chronicle, and to this day I still admire all the student journalists who handled the situation with such grace and skill.  In terms of funny, I guess I would have to say any press conference I’ve ever been in with men’s basketball head coach Mike Krzyzewski.  He always refers to me by name when I ask a question and usually he’ll throw in a sarcastic line poking fun at me before he continues with his response.  I think it’s a sign of his respect for me, or at least that’s what I’ve been telling myself for three years.

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What first sparked your passion for journalism?

I honestly think it was something I was born with.  I can’t describe it any other way.  I’ve been watching “Meet the Press” since I was in elementary school and have been reading at least one newspaper a day for about as long (although today, my news diet has grown to be borderline embarrassing/obsessive).  I was the editor of my high school paper and knew coming to Duke that getting involved with our newspaper here was something I really wanted to do.

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What are your predictions for the future of college journalism?

On the business end of college journalism, I think we’ll begin to see a lot more campus newspapers move to create independent endowments to supplement their day-to-day advertising revenue.  For example, I interviewed the editor in chief of The Harvard Crimson for a story I worked on this fall about the future of college journalism, and he said that 15 to 20 percent of the paper’s revenue comes from donations.  As revenues continue decline at papers across the country (although, admittedly not nearly at as severe of a rate as their professional counterparts), the endowment movement will gain traction.

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On the content side, I think the opportunities for young people to get involved in journalism have never been greater or more exciting.  As we keep growing in the Internet age, computer science majors and design majors and film studies concentrators will find seats in college newsrooms next to your typical English and communications students.  College newspaper Web sites are great platforms to be creative and inventive in how we present the news.  As they expand, I think readership for college publications will widen as more people nationwide will be able access the quality content college journalists have been producing on campus for decades, just in more appealing and reader-friendly ways.

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What is one question we should all be asking much more often about the current state or future of journalism?

I think newsroom diversity is a huge issue that tends to get overlooked because of all the doomsday-type questions surrounding the profession.  Because the current business model for journalism is broken and completely out-of-date, you see a lot of talented college journalists shying away from the profession— and some out of necessity.  Many of the friends I have from college who went on to pursue careers in the field were working entry-level jobs that, if they paid anything at all, did not pay nearly enough to cover the cost of living.  What this translates to, in practice, is that many of the kids who are starting out in journalism today are from middle-to-upperclass families and can afford to chase their dreams for a few years while they’re finding their way.  I’m not saying these kids aren’t talented— many of them are— but I think the reality of the business is creating a more homogenized newsroom, and a newsroom is place that thrives most from a wide range of voices that come from different places, backgrounds, and experiences.

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You wake up in ten years. Where are you and what are you doing?

Gosh, part of me wishes I knew the answer to that question.  The other part of me, however, is excited that I don’t.  I feel as if there are a million opportunities out there.  I’m just hoping to latch onto a good one at some point.  One of my friends asked me the other night over dinner what my goal in life was.  I told her, “To never be bored.”  So we’ll see where that takes me.

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Student Media Spotlight Loses Luster for Some Alums

A growing number of university alumni are attempting to put their more personal, unprofessional or cringe-worthy moments in the student media spotlight behind them.  

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According to a new report in The Chronicle of Higher Education*,  some alums  are asking SMOs (student media outlets) to remove articles from their online archives that they say are misleading or embarassing.  Why so worried?  They do not want current or future employers, grad schools or significant others to find them. 

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Welcome to the World (Wide Web).  Finger prints are so 2008.  What we’re talking about here are (dramatic pause) Google prints – basically the stuff that we create or that gets posted online about us that now has the ability to haunt us forever.  The SMOs appear to be targeted because they run stories by or about us peeps in our younger days, when we are potentially more likely to write that op-ed about legalizing all drugs ASAP or to steal an old lady’s purse while drunk and earn a place in the campus police blotter.  (In addition, many SMOs have free, more Google-friendly archives than professional outlets.)  

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Must alums suffer for their undergraduate op-ed extravagances or one-time-only minor infractions?  It’s a tough call, but ultimately altering old content is a HUGE slippery slope.  Most papers are apparently standing firm on NOT changing a word of any past stories.  A few are taking what the Chronicle calls a middle ground by “darkening” certain pieces- essentially making them crazy-tough to find through a typical Google search.

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These types of complaints are ultimately an overreaction.  And let’s not forget: YOU WERE IN COLLEGE, meaning you were already a legal adult.  So unless someone stuck a gun to your head and said ‘Write me an article’ or ‘Go get arrested for something silly’ or ‘Give me a quote and no one gets hurt’ it’s hard to feel sorry for you.  

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There are exceptions, in my opinion, at least those that deserve more careful consideration.  The Chron piece calls it the “human factor.” One I recall reading about in recent years was a young woman who wrote some pieces in college critical of a specific very anti-American foreign government who suddenly found herself working in that country and requested that the newspaper erase or “darken” her pieces to ensure she would not be in danger.  Maybe she was being over-cautious, but a request like that would at least give me pause and prompt a chat with fellow editors.

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What do you think???  (Be careful what you say- your comments will haunt you . . . forever.)

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CICM Director Bryan Murley says it best, as usual: “If the first thing that comes up on a Google search is something they did in college because they haven’t done anything since college, then they should participate more in the online conversation.  Hopefully five or 10 years from now, people won’t be so worried about this, because everybody will have their Internet trail, and it will become more acceptable.”

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(*The Chronicle is well-known for restricting its content like whoa to non-subscribers, so the link may only bring you to a teaser site.)

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Student Media’s Next Stop Should Be the Statehouse

Attention, attention please.  Paging student media.  You are needed in the state house immediately. 

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Amid all the talk and snippets of action as to how college journalism can save the Fourth Estate or at least help ease its decline (such as thefirst university-based investigative journalism center, attempts at international news coverage by j-students at Suffolk, Swarthmore, andUMASS, online outlets boasting 24-hour coverage, and chatter about schools possibly purchasing newspapers), 50 pantheons producing politics and quality journalism are being far too often forgotten.  Hint, most have domes at the top.

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Statehouses!  As Time recently noted, “Statehouse coverage is the bread and butter of a newspaper: unsexy and repetitive, but one of the foundations of a nutritional news diet.”  Yet, according to Time‘s report, this bread-and-butter is being marginalized, fast.  More and more news outlets that are shedding dollars and reporters are being forced to cut back on dedicated statehouse coverage due to the expense and a lack of staff.  The result?  Less personal connection between a state’s politics and its people and a greater possibility that corruption and poor performances are going unchecked. 

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Cue college journalists, and the educators who teach and support them.  Of course, some student news outlets lucky enough to operate from universities at or near their capital cities have established state government beats; and a few j-programs already do include state political coverage in the curriculums.  But a more in-depth, and wide-ranging, infrastructure should be put in place nationwide.  Whether treating the experience as an in-state study abroad, an on-location internship or simply an additional part of a j-student’s courseload,statehouse reporting is a win-win-win-win situation for j-students, universities, the public, and the press:

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WIN 1) For students, it puts political journalism theory into practice, beyond covering student government or school administrative fights.  It provides students with valuable experiences dealing with things like the FOIA, press liaisons, and political awesomeness and humbuggery.  

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WIN 2) It provides universities and their j-schools with a tangible, focused course/program that they can promote and utilize as a way to make a real difference in the public sphere.   

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WIN 3) It provides the public with news they need but are increasingly not getting to the levels that they desire or deserve.

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WIN 4) It maintains journalism’s presence in the state halls of power, letting politicians know their fronts, backs, speeches, bills, and wrongdoings are still being adequately watched.

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The toughest parts: getting funding to pay for possibly necessary expenses such as lodging, transportation, classroom/office space, and a supervisory person/team; ensuring administrators at public schools don’t get squirmy at the thought of their students covering the same legislators who have power over their universities’ budgets; and hiring the most experienced journalists/educators around to aid students in their state political quests (and to come to their rescue when they screw up or stumble upon more risque stories).

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Minnesota Daily Editor in Chief Resigns Amid Suspension

A sad turn of events at the top of The Minnesota Daily editorial food chain: The EIC, who doubles as one of the student paper’s co-publishers, resigned late last week, most likely just before he would have been fired.

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The mini-saga, as it was admirably reported by the Daily seemingly objectively, played out in two parts:

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1) The editor used part of a Daily report on a recent mass student riot for an article run in The Minneapolis Star Tribune without permission.  His punishment was a one-week suspension and a loss of his bonus.  

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2) During his suspension, he accessed the Daily Web site CMS and re-ordered where a story appeared online.  Why?  It’s unclear.  He says he was just doing his job and ensuring the ranking of stories in the print version and online version matched.  Other staffers note his access of the CMS violated his suspension- and he could have easily let another editor know of the mix-up and had them make the change.  The kicker: The story in question featured him.  Yeahhhhhh.  Cue raised eyebrows.

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My take: One of the most forgotten, yet valuable aspects, of the college journalism experience is screwing up royally.  Mistakes are dramatic and burn themselves into our memories, many times even more than our successes.  And they are learning tools that help former j-students navigate the professional abyss.  The ed. in question here sounds like a good guy who served the Daily loyally for four years and recently let his judgment falter and possibly his ego get the better of him.  He made the mature decision to resign.  The editor, and the paper, should learn from the experience and focus on the positive aspects.  In this case, staffers can now state with more credibility than ever that no one gets away with wrongdoing under the Daily‘s watch, sadly at times not even one of its own.  Best of luck going forward.

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