CMM 10: Jennifer Waits, College Radio Blogger & Advocate

CMM 10 is a spotlighting of the 10 individuals who have mattered most to college media over the past academic year.  This inaugural edition honors a mix of standout student journalists, innovative student media entrepreneurs, and impassioned outside advocates of campus press 2.0.  With a hat tip to the annual Time 100, the posts announcing each honoree include a few words of adoration penned by a close friend or colleague.  Next up…

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Jennifer Waits

Founder & Overseer, Spinning Indie college radio blog

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During a recent interview Jennifer Waits conducted, a fellow DJ told her, “It’s an addiction. I have to DJ. . . . When you’re DJing to FM airwaves, you’re DJing into space. There’s no feeling like it.”  Waits has been personally hooked on this feeling for more than 24 years– serving as a DJ at four different college radio stations, including WHRC during her undergraduate days at Haverford College and KFJC (operated by Foothill College in California) since 1999.

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“I love music and for me the easiest way to stay in touch with new music and old, undiscovered music is by staying involved in college radio,” she said. “KFJC owns tens of thousands of records and CDs and there’s always something amazing to be learned from searching through their vast record library and from tapping into the collective knowledge of fellow DJs. I love crafting a radio show from week to week and weaving together pieces of music in order to share sounds with listeners.”

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Off the air, she is committed to “spreading the gospel of college radio” like no one else on earth.  She freelances about it prolifically and is the founder and one-woman tour de force behind Spinning Indie, the world’s most influential college radio blog.

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As an adamant “evangelist for radio’s ongoing relevance,” she is determined to specifically spotlight college radio culture- its independence, eclecticism, and celebration of a unique musical feast you will not find anywhere else on the dial. “To me, college radio is the best source for underground, experimental music that doesn’t make it into the rotation of commercial radio stations,” she said.  “I like the mix of genres too- from sound collage to folk music from the 1920s to Turkish psychedelia to modern classical and chamber pop. You never know what to expect when you tune into a college radio station and that’s what makes college radio so magical.”

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My favorite portions of SI: a field trip series documenting her visits to college radio stations across the U.S. and a separate virtual tour highlighting student stations “that might be a bit below the radar.”  Ultimately, Waits does not earn money for her blogging or DJing.  In fact, she is the one paying.  She finances the station trips out of her own pocket and also pays tuition at Foothill, since only registered students can work with the station.  In her words, simply, “It’s a labor of love.”

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“An Invaluable Asset to College Radio”

By Paul Riismandel

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Jennifer Waits is the strongest and smartest voice reporting on and advocating for college radio today. With a deep knowledge of the history of this unique medium, combined with a keen sense of its role in our media environment, Jennifer shares the fruits of her research and passion  at RadioSurvivor.com and her own blog, Spinning Indie. Not content to just write about college radio, she puts her conviction to work by visiting stations and networking with their staffs, becoming a catalyst for the exchange of information and ideas amongst this often atomized community. Jennifer is an invaluable asset to college radio (and she does her own show, too).

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Riismandel is *the* mediageek.

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Other CMM 10 honorees:

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Karla Bowsher, University Press

Ryan Dunn & Dave Hendricks, College News Network

Adam Goldstein, Student Press Law Center

Windsor Hanger, Stephanie Kaplan & Annie Wang, Her Campus

Davis Shaver, Onward State

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Idaho Student Paper “Hate” Piece Angers Boise State Prez

Bob Kustra, the president of Boise State University, has publicly apologized for a recent rant against the school’s athletic rival, the University of Idaho, in which he called the UI campus culture “nasty” and “inebriated.”

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The primary trigger for the un-presidential outburst, according to Kustra: a recent opinion column run in The Argonaut, UI’s student newspaper, which informed incoming UI students that they will hate BSU.

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“There is one crucial element all incoming students need to know about attending the University of Idaho,” the student writer of the piece relates. “It is not that classes will be hard or time-consuming, how to find classes or to know which building is which, or where you will live or how to pay for school. It is that as a UI Vandal [the school’s mascot], you will hate Boise State University. . . . True, die-hard Vandals hate BSU with a passion that at times seems unreal.”

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The piece passionately derides the BSU fight song and mascot, while calling the schools’ rivalry intermittently “dirty, mean and vulgar.”  Is it a straightforward “hate” column that possibly steps over the line?  Is it meant to be impassioned to the point of satire?  Is it simply a spirited battle cry prior to a big football game (the two foes meet in mid-November)? Or is it a diatribe solely intended to anger BSU students and staff?

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If its aim was the latter, mission accomplished.  The column definitely nabbed a spot under Kustra’s skin and caused him to lash out during a subsequent interview with the Idaho Statesman editorial board. In his apology, he noted, “It troubles me that the occasion of an annual football game causes the air waves and Internet to be full of disparagement of Boise State’s students, faculty and programs, year after year.”

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As an outside observer and college football fan, my first two impressions: 1) I wonder if The Arbiter, Boise State’s student newspaper, will respond.  2) I cannot wait to watch this game.

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Student Journalists’ New Media Potential *Still* Unplugged

Back in November 2008, during an online chat, I told Center for Innovation in College Media director Bryan Murley: “College journalists don’t seem to really know quite yet how to handle new media as a news reporting and presentation platform. . . . I think we may be overestimating just how many students are truly adept at new media, and just how high their level of adeptness runs.”

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Now, nearly two years later, in a mini state-of-the-student-press-2.0 address, Michael Koretzky has confirmed that college media are *still* missing what I call “the big online IOU”- Interactivity, Originality, and an Understanding of the web’s potential.

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Koretzky criticizes a majority of college news media sites as cluttered, homely hack jobs filled with web-unfriendly shovelware.  “What’s so weirdly depressing is that I’ve seen many of these newspapers in print- and they kick ass,” he writes.  “From the design to the writing to the photography, you can tell talented students sweat and bled for their paper dreams.  Their print editions have verve.  Their online editions have templates.”

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My take: For all the talk about the innate Internet abilities of the young, the mobile, and the wireless, the truth is that a large majority of current students still have no desire to contribute to the web world beyond basic user status. They fool around on Facebook, view YouTube videos, text until their thumbs bleed, and then go to sleep– phone on vibrate, new media potential unplugged.

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“We’re content to exploit the Internet, not innovate in it,” writes Derek Flanzraich, a recent Harvard University graduate who launched an online television network while still in school.  “We’re lazy. . . . Generation X can invent the new web– and we’ll use it when/if we need it.”

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As a March 2010 Economist article similarly confirmed, “Michael Wesch, who pioneered the use of new media in his cultural anthropology classes at Kansas State University . . . [says] that many of his incoming students have only a superficial familiarity with the digital tools that they use regularly, especially when it comes to the tools’ social and political potential. Only a small fraction of students may count as true digital natives.”

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As a whole, journalism students, sadly, are not among them.  They have not gone (digitally) native to the degree they should. There are many reasons for j-students’ unplugged new media potential: laziness, lack of relevant knowledge and skill-sets (in part a knock on j-schools and departments), overworked student media staff, and a lingering print-first mentality whose merits are debatable (after all, print newspapers remain popular on campus and print still represents the largest stack of professional j-jobs, but of course times are a-changin’).

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And so the time has come for a call to arms.  To all student journalists and the educators and advisers who love them: We must get beyond the shovelware mentality.  Posting a basic copy-paste of our print news products online is no longer enough.  We must stop citing the small-staff-already-overworked-still-learning-tech-stuff-no-funding-for-quality-redesign excuse.  It’s a new media world in collegemediatopia.  Web presence requires a different presentation style.  It’s not just about showing up.

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(Update July 28, 2010: A new study in the International Journal of Communication further confirms the alarming truth about students’ lack of web savvy.)

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CMM 10: Dave Hendricks & Ryan Dunn, College News Network Founders

CMM 10 is a spotlighting of the 10 individuals who have mattered most to college media over the past academic year.  This inaugural edition honors a mix of standout student journalists, innovative student media entrepreneurs, and impassioned outside advocates of campus press 2.0.  With a hat tip to the annual Time 100, the posts announcing each honoree include a few words of adoration penned by a close friend or colleague.  Next up…

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Dave Hendricks & Ryan Dunn

Founders and overseers, College News Network

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Lewis & Clark. Mickey & Minnie. Adam & Eve. Bill & Hillary. Sonny & Cher. Lucy & Ricky. Bonnie & Clyde. Simon & Garfunkel. Hendricks & Dunn. The Ohio University journalist sensations are the latest, greatest duos to leave a lasting mark on the world (wide web)- and collegemediatopia.

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Their contribution: College News Network. They began the nationwide student press content-sharing site last November in the wake of UWIRE’s sudden disappearance.  From the beginning, the start-up venture was an exemplar of web 2.0 and student journalism awesomeness.  Impassioned.  Interactive. Easy to operate. Run with minimal overhead and a manageable work routine. A needed service at just the right time.  THIS is CNN.

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Left to right: Dave Hendricks and Ryan Dunn. (Hendricks photo by Courtney Hergesheimer.)

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Dunn: “Doggedly Pursues Every Story, Every Time”

By Dave Hendricks

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Several years before we founded the College News Network, Ryan Dunn covered cops in Athens, Ohio, for Ohio University’s student-run newspaper, The Post. In a town filled with eager but inexperienced journalism students, the cops weren’t interested in meeting or dealing with a new reporter. But Ryan waited.

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He went to every crime scene he could, kept calling officers who wouldn’t call back and chased every story. And, eventually, some of the officers warmed up to him. He went on to cover some of the biggest news of the year, including the deaths of two students who overdosed on heroin. To this day, he’s probably the only person at the paper who could tell you what shift a given officer is on. Ryan doggedly pursues every story, every time. And he doesn’t give up.

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Hendricks is the co-founder of College News Network and an editor at The Post.

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Hendricks: “A Natural Reporter”

By Ryan Dunn

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The first time I heard of Mr. Dave Murray Hendricks, Jr. was when I started working for The Summer Post, the weekly version of our student paper after the regular year’s courses wrapped up. I decided to take a few classes before freshman year started, and was riding high with a story or two on a couple front pages.

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On the fourth issue of my journalism career, I see seven (!) Dave Hendricks bylines. I asked my future editor how I could do this. She told me I don’t want to be like Dave, as journalism, well, let’s say took a priority over school. That sums him up well, and it was something I always shot for.  Over three years, I worked very closely with Dave at The Post and College News Network, the latter of which we co-founded. If I were a corrupt and well-paid administrator for any organization (God willing), Dave’s is one of the last calls I would take. With a dogmatic drive and knack for asking questions that yield great answers, he’s a natural reporter.

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Dunn is the co-founder of College News Network and an editor at The Post.

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Other CMM 10 honorees:

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Karla Bowsher, University Press

Adam Goldstein, Student Press Law Center

Windsor Hanger, Stephanie Kaplan & Annie Wang, Her Campus

Davis Shaver, Onward State

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Story Ideas: Senior Thesis Spotlights (Wesleyan Argus)

This CMM series features a sampling of crazy cool, highly relevant or offbeat stories by student journalists that can be localized for different campus audiences- along with suggestions on ways to create and present that content. Next up…

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Senior Thesis Spotlights

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Dance in colonial America. Radicalism in Wesleyan University’s past. A photographic “cardboard city.” These topics and creative pursuits were among the works featured in a series published throughout this past spring by The Wesleyan Argus.  The Argus pieces are straightforward profiles or Q&As with final-year students discussing their long-term passion projects: their senior theses.

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The spotlights serve a dual role: profiling an eclectic slate of students (including a wrestling champion, a self-described student radical, and an opera lover) and helping fill a worthy news niche- student schoolwork.  Let’s be honest, among the many stories run on students’ awesomeness in athletics, extracurriculars, internships, volunteering, and outside artistic or business ventures, features on their research activities or classroom achievement are rare.  And usually for good reason: On the face of it, they are not newsworthy. (Literally, what comes to mind at the moment are student newspaper features on random lab achievements by science students- usually at the grad. school level.)

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The Argus angle rocks that non-newsworthy assumption, providing a model for other campus media to follow.  Seek out especially intriguing, offbeat or impacting academic work undertaken by your student peers.  Senior theses are obvious selections, but many advanced courses or separate research-for-credit opportunities offer students the opportunity to add to existing knowledge or make a creative contribution.

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Keep the profiles or Q&As short.  (I like the NYT Magazine style in that respect, such as this Eminem interview.)  And focus on the student as much as his or her research– the wrestler-dance researcher profile shown above is a perfect example.

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CMM 10: Karla Bowsher, Editor in Chief, University Press

CMM 10 is a spotlighting of the 10 individuals who have mattered most to college media over the past academic year.  This inaugural edition honors a mix of standout student journalists, innovative student media entrepreneurs, and impassioned outside advocates of campus press 2.0.  With a hat tip to the annual Time 100, the posts announcing each honoree include a few words of adoration penned by a close friend or colleague.  Next up…

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Karla Bowsher

Editor in chief, The University Press, Florida Atlantic University

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In the “Photo of the Day” now featured on The University Press website, a golden silk spider is in full focus, navigating a tightly-woven web in the Florida sun.  The picture resonates with UP’s own current tangled reality. The Florida Atlantic University student newspaper is caught in a web of intrigue involving a beloved ousted adviser, a replacement student media director so far less-than-respected, a band of administrators who have pressured j-students to do things their way, and a set of slighted staffers trying to suck it up and cover FAU daily.

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Karla Bowsher, UP’s editor in chief, is the woman at the web’s center. Previously, as the paper’s copy chief, she helped heal the “open, oozing, pus-ridden sore” that was the UP copyediting system.  The current sore she battles oozes censorship.  Even while still extremely new to the EIC post, she has passionately stood her ground in the face of administrative threats.  She has been unafraid to publicly challenge school officials for their off-kilter words and behaviors.  She has rallied her UP peers to continue reporting the news.  And she has continued reporting herself, writing pieces that “snarkily hold FAU’s powers-that-be accountable.”

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Unlike that of the pictured golden silk spider, the web in which Bowsher finds herself is not of her own making.  But she is making the most of it– and earning the respect of the journalism establishment and free speech advocates along the way.

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Photo by Devin Desjarlais

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“Karla Uses Journalism for More Than Just Reporting”

By Michael Koretzky

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Karla Bowsher is probably the most famous student editor in the country this summer- not bad for a Spanish Studies major who started the job only a few weeks ago.  I believe Karla was genetically engineered to handle the controversy embroiling FAU right now. She’s proven immune to the administration tactics that have broken other student leaders. When she’s been threatened, she researches the rules and learns she can’t be punished. When she’s ignored, she keeps asking relevant questions. When she’s dictated to, she stands up for herself and her staff.

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In other words, Karla uses journalism for more than just reporting on her university. She uses journalism to preserve her newspaper’s independence. I’ve never seen Karla lose her cool, either in front of her staff or behind the scenes. and when the heat is on, she cooks. She’s been firm but not rude, fervent but not melodramatic, opinionated but not dogmatic.  All you need to know about Karla you can hear for yourself. Catch her in action…

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Koretzky is a veteran journalist and the former paid adviser and current volunteer adviser for The University Press.

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Other CMM 10 honorees:

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Adam Goldstein, Student Press Law Center

Windsor Hanger, Stephanie Kaplan & Annie Wang, Her Campus

Davis Shaver, Onward State

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CMM 10: Davis Shaver, Founder & Publisher, Onward State

CMM 10 is a spotlighting of the 10 individuals who have mattered most to college media over the past academic year.  This inaugural edition honors a mix of standout student journalists, innovative student media entrepreneurs, and impassioned outside advocates of campus press 2.0.  With a hat tip to the annual Time 100, the posts announcing each honoree include a few words of adoration penned by a close friend or colleague.  Next up…

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Davis Shaver

Founder & publisher, Onward State, Penn State University

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Nowadays, the most interesting student media outlets are not just being staffed.  They are being created.  Davis Shaver’s creation, Onward State, is among the most prominent new players in collegemediatopia- a flash-bang success with recognized staying power.  Shaver is being called an online whiz kid and the potential “future of alternative student media.”  I would not be surprised if he sports a secret Journalism 3.0 tattoo.  His new media methods are laudable, and so is his timeless aim: delivering news and commentary of interest and importance to students.

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“His Work Ethic and Drive Match His Vision”

By Evan Kalikow

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The thing that has always impressed me about Davis is that his work ethic and drive match his vision. A lot of times, people will have great ideas, but they won’t have the dedication to go through with them. Not so with Davis. From the first day I knew him, he had a great idea for a student-run blog about Penn State. Thanks in large part to his pragmatism and dedication, that blog is now a reality and has been going strong for almost two years.

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On a more personal note, another great thing about Davis is his diverse sense of humor. He can appreciate a well-crafted and witty joke about current affairs, philosophy, culture, etc., and then turn around and laugh at a poop joke (and believe me, we’ve exchanged plenty of both). It’s something I’ve always admired.

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Kalikow is standards editor at Onward State.

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Other CMM 10 honorees:

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Adam Goldstein, Student Press Law Center

Windsor Hanger, Stephanie Kaplan & Annie Wang, Her Campus

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Story Ideas: “Musical Snapshots of My College Career”

This occasional CMM series features a sampling of crazy cool, highly relevant or offbeat stories by student journalists that can be localized for different campus audiences- along with suggestions on ways to create and present that content. Next up…

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A Student’s Soundtrack

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Come commencement time, glimpses back at the highlights and lowlights of the previous two semesters or graduating students’ four-year college careers appear as predictably as senior pranks.  Many show up as straightforward lists. Some run as photo collages or slideshows.  And a few appear as more personal reflections, most frequently via the sign-off columns penned by student media staffers themselves.  Almost all deal with major milestones or news events.

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But what about the music? A pre-commencement piece published by TommieMedia at Minnesota’s University of St. Thomas provides one of the more intriguing “glimpse backs” that I have come across this year.  Its most appealing quality is its point of entry. The writer, a graduating senior, offers a “musical snapshot” of his undergraduate tenure, summoning up memories via the songs that were playing at the time.

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As he writes at the start, “Unlike photos, which do a great job of capturing single scenes, songs can attach themselves to certain times and take you back years later when you revisit them. . . . As my classmates and I prepare for graduation, I’ve begun to look through my music library, trying to find the songs that will take me back to the college days when I put them on years from now.”

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The piece’s ultimate execution is admittedly a bit spotty (some of the reflections are blah, too vague or self-indulgent), but the overall idea has real merit. Whether it’s via an iPod, laptop, dorm stereo, house party DJ or the radio blasting in the bar, music is a significant, inescapable accompaniment on almost every student’s collegiate journey. Certain songs frame certain moments better than almost any other artistic rendering or journalistic write-up. And they are an excellent trigger for a “glimpse back” piece at semester’s or year’s end.

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Two related ideas: 1) Conduct a survey and then run a general list of the songs that defined your class year’s collegiate existence.  2) Put together short profiles or video reports centered on students’ individual memories about the songs that hold special meaning to them.  The key: It’s not about the songs. It’s about the life stories to which they served as soundtracks.

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College Media Censorship: Year In Review

College media censorship has a lot in common with Mystique. The mutant supervillain associated with the X-Men is best known for her duplicitous shape-shifting aimed at doing harm. Over the past academic year, a Censor supervillain similarly known for adopting many identities and tactics has attempted to stomp out student press expression nationwide.

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The censorious shape-shifter has morphed into various administrators, university presidents, football coaches, campus police, politicians, and even college journalists’ undergraduate peers. Their harmful activity includes student journalism theft, trashing, threats, distribution limitation, funding cuts, and source constraints.

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The lowlights of the Censor’s villainy during the past two semesters:

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– Late last September, Towson University president Robert Caret publicly condemned a sex column published in The Towerlight student newspaper. He threatened to pull needed university funding from the paper if the column continued running, a stance from which he eventually backed down. Critics called Caret’s attack posturing that did nothing but inflame tensions and put Towson in the spotlight as a school boasting leaders who do not believe in editorial freedom. As The Baltimore Sun noted, “There may indeed be little journalistic value in ‘The Bed Post’ [column] . . . . [But] it should have been up to the students to come to those conclusions, not have them dictated by lawmakers and university administrators. The first lessons student journalists in a democracy learn should not have to be how to survive under the censor’s arbitrary fist.”

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– Also last fall, University of Montana football coach Bobby Hauck (who has since accepted a job at UNLV) threw a prolonged temper tantrum aimed directly at The Montana Kaimin, the school’s student newspaper. He temporarily refused to speak to the Kaimin, and instructed his team and staff to boycott the publication as well. Why? Simply because Kaimin staffers had the gall to publish an accurate story about two football players’ alleged misdeeds and then also ask Hauck some tame football questions at press conferences. Hauck later relented and apologized.

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– In a separate incident also involving the gridiron, Guy Morriss, the football coach at Texas A&M University-Commerce, expressed pride last March at his players’ involvement in the theft of almost 2,000 copies of The East Texan. The issue of the newspaper that riled players contained a front page story headlined, “Football Player Arrested in Drug Bust.” Most of the squad was involved in the roughly one-hour mass theft operation. The coach’s reaction when he found out about their misdeeds: “This was the best team building exercise we have ever done.”

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– In October 2009, more than 10,000 copies of The Daily Wildcat were poached at the University of Arizona. The theft cost the newspaper $8,500 in lost advertising revenue and printing fees. An array of evidence implicated members of a campus fraternity that had recently received negative coverage in the newspaper. The paper passionately led a probe into the thefts, stating, “Someone stole the news. . . . Until this case is definitively settled, the newspaper’s staff will continue to do whatever is necessary to find justice in this case.” So far, no culprits have been arrested or charged.

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– In April, The Chart at Missouri Southern State University was suddenly forced to gather all information on campus through one official: the director of university relations. School administrators said it was an organizational issue. Chart staffers and student press advocates called it a Stalinesque attempt at information control, enacted in the wake of negative events at the school. According to the newspaper’s editor in chief, “I think some people on this campus have the viewpoint that especially with the press this university has had in the past couple months, the less publicity now the better.”

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– The Breeze at James Madison University suffered two separate attacks on its editorial freedom in the past year. The first began last October with a peeping tom- an alleged voyeur watching women in dorm showers. A Breeze reporter went to a JMU residence hall to speak with students about the reported shower stalker. An on-site RA became nervous and asked the reporter to leave. The Breeze editor in chief came by as back-up. Soon after, school officials charged both staffers with “trespassing, disorderly conduct and non-compliance with an official request.” Administrators declared the dorms to be private property, off-limits to student journalists. A majority of critics saw the charges as a nasty power abuse against the spirit and possibly the legal definition of the First Amendment. As a JMU professor stated, “It’s very ironic we have this situation at an institution named after James Madison, who has been labeled the father of the Constitution.”

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Six months later, local police and a county prosecutor stormed into the Breeze newsroom. They seized (digitally burned) hundreds of unpublished photographs taken by newspaper staffers during Springfest, a school block party that turned into a riot. Inexplicably, the police also burned lots of other photos unrelated to the event. Breeze staffers were forced to watch, mad and mystified, while their intellectual property was taken.

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The police and prosecutor had no legal backing for their actions. Some press advocates even argued that they were breaking the law. As Kevin Smith, president of the Society of Professional Journalists, said at the time, “It sounds to me like the prosecutor needs to spend more time with law books and less time watching Law & Order.” The Washington Post similarly noted in a shaking of its editorial fist about the incident, “There was no subpoena, no court arguments and no recognition that raiding a newspaper makes a mockery of the First Amendment.” In the end, the county prosecutor offered an official apology for the mockery and paid the newspaper’s $10,000 legal fees accrued while fighting her actions.

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– In early March, the student body president of Kansas University publicly called for a discontinuation of the $83,000 in student fees allocated to The Daily Kansan, citing perceived conflict-of-interest issues. In his words, “There is a lot of potential for undue influence both ways.” Critics countered that the president’s concerns ignored the Kansan‘s longstanding journalism excellence and the fact that financial support for campus publications from student fees is common across higher education. The KU student senate finance committee subsequently approved the proposed cut, which had the potential to cause a debilitating domino effect for the newspaper involving a staff shortage, content reductions, and an advertising decline. Fortunately, the full student senate later reversed the finance committee’s vote, upholding the publication’s student fees support.

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– In April, a pair of “agitated, angry, nervous, and certainly dangerous” cows dashed to freedom on Ohio State University’s campus, prompting a police chase and tranquilizer shots. Alex Kotran, a photographer for The Lantern, quickly raced to the scene to snatch photographs of the cow-tastrophe. A school official spotted him and demanded he stop snapping shots. He rightfully responded with reminders about public property and press freedom. As the cattle continued their short-term stampede, campus cops intervened and inexplicably held Kotran against his will. As a Lantern report noted, “He was detained, handcuffed and is facing a misdemeanor charge of criminal trespass. . . . ‘[A police officer] told me I was under arrest,’ Kotran said. ‘I advised him that I was on public property, and he started talking about Supreme Court cases and stuff.’ Kotran said he was detained ‘for about 10 minutes.'” In the end, the cows were captured and all charges against Kotran were dropped.

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– In early May, administrators at the University of Utah threatened to hold the academic records and degrees of nine soon-to-graduate senior staffers at The Daily Utah Chronicle. The reason: A series of columns run in the newspaper’s goodbye issue that overtly spelled the words ‘penis’ and ‘c*nt’ via the bolded drop-caps starting each column. The school said the editors had violated school rules, calling the wordplay an “intentional disruption or obstruction” of university activities. The troubling aspect about the university’s involvement was that their aim was an independent entity. Chronicle content does not come under administrative control- vulgar column drop-caps included. As a letter of concern sent to Utah administrators by the SPLC and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) stated, “As a public university both legally and morally bound to respect the First Amendment rights of its students, the University of Utah cannot lawfully punish students for exercising their First Amendment rights.” The administrators’ threats ultimately proved hollow. The students’ degrees were awarded on time.

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– And finally, and most disturbingly, in fall 2009, Virginia Tech University administrators threatened to cut funding for The Collegiate Times, the school yearbook, and other campus media due to their distaste for the CT’s allowance of anonymous comments following stories posted online. The university’s Commission on Student Affairs declared that the student newspaper’s failure to oversee and remove troublesome anonymous comments from its website violated the school’s “principles of community.”

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In response, the newspaper’s parent company reminded the commission of the CT’s editorial independence and promised a legal fight if the funding threat was carried out. In addition, FIRE released a rebuke of the school’s threats, noting: “Virginia Tech is acting because of content-based concerns, which is plainly unconstitutional. Virginia Tech, after all, is a public university bound by the First Amendment, although it seems that Virginia Tech has little interest in acknowledging this fact. . . . Woe be to Virginia Tech.” Ultimately, after a quick burst of mostly negative media attention nationwide and the specter of a brewing legal battle, Virginia Tech officials backed down.

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That result is an example of the one main thread binding all these different sagas together other than censorship: empowerment. Simply put, it is tougher than ever to mess with the student press. The organizational backing on a national level- including the SPLC, SPJ, FIRE, and the Associated Collegiate Press (ACP)- has never been stronger. The web also enables a rapid response scenario in which the professional press, the blogosphere, and the Twitterverse can immediately band together, offer advice and other assistance, and spread the word about an injustice worldwide. The responses often create public relations nightmares for student press opponents.

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They also breed confidence. Student media are now much more secure drawing firm lines in the sand over controversial issues because they know they will not be alone when times get tough. Nowadays, a fight against a particular student press outlet is also a fight against college media, free press advocates, and the very power of the web itself. It is the modern student press Mystique.

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CMM 10: Adam Goldstein, Attorney Advocate, Student Press Law Center

CMM 10 is a spotlighting of the 10 individuals who have mattered most to college media over the past academic year.  This inaugural edition honors a mix of standout student journalists, innovative student media entrepreneurs, and impassioned outside advocates of campus press 2.0.  With a hat tip to the annual Time 100, the posts announcing each honoree include a few words of adoration penned by a close friend or colleague.  Next up…

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Adam Goldstein

Attorney Advocate, Student Press Law Center

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Adam Goldstein almost always says it best.  His fight for student press rights is inspiring.  From what I hear, his knowledge of media law is absolutely insane. But what I admire most about the man is his way with words.  The sound bites and guest blogs of his that appear whenever j-students smell trouble in the water are on point, aggressive, and frequently hilarious.

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A few of my recent Goldstein favorites- discussing schools’ and individuals’ anti-student-press stances or antics:

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“I don’t care if it’s the ghost of Richard Nixon, foaming at the mouth rabid and wearing nothing but a placard accusing [congressman Bob Etheridge] of being of questionable parentage. No matter who this is, Etheridge doesn’t have the legal right to put hands on him for asking a question.”  (Commenting on a politician’s recent bizarre grab-and-hold of someone claiming to be a student journalist)

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“There is a lot wrong with this picture, not the least of it being that it took seven cops to deliver an ultimatum. Just picturing the scene in my head puts them a banjo and a washboard away from living down to every stereotype of rural southern justice. (Maybe the prosecutor thought she was hot on the trail of ‘them Duke boys!‘)” (Criticizing last semester’s police raid of The Breeze newsroom at JMU)

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“Bullsh*t. That’s a flat-out freedom of association violation. [Koretzky’s] not a leader of a terrorist cell. You can’t just say, ‘You can’t talk to people.’”  (Calling out FAU administrators for their early attempts at limiting student journalists from meeting with a former adviser)

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Goldstein deserves your applause, but when I meet him, I’m going to hold back. I’d much rather just hear him speak.

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“Absolutely Passionate About Defending Students’ Rights”

By Frank LoMonte

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If you are a college administrator who likes to grind kids under your boot, Adam Goldstein is your worst nightmare. He is a ferocious and relentless advocate, and if you try to argue with him, he will quickly expose you for a fool. Adam will admit that he’s a bit of a scary-looking guy– it doesn’t help that he dresses head-to-toe in black every day– but you have nothing to fear from him unless you’re intentionally hurting kids. That’s when Adam turns all green and starts smashing things. He is absolutely passionate about defending students’ rights, and he is a master at using every legal and diplomatic pressure point to win the day. And if that fails, he is a champion shamer. When you have been shamed by Adam, you stay shamed.

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Adam has an inexhaustible memory for the minutiae of copyright law, and that is doubly remarkable when you realize how much other knowledge– from gourmet cooking to online gaming– he’s storing up there. I hope that one day he donates his brain to science, or maybe to science fiction. In addition to being a brilliant lawyer, strategist and writer, Adam keeps the office in a state of perpetual hilarity. We used to have a “quote board” with postings of inappropriate witticisms hanging on the wall, but the other day it literally collapsed under the weight of Adam’s contributions.

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Last September, Adam fielded his 10,000th SPLC hotline call, and although that is a mind-blowingly large figure, Adam remembers the individual details of an astounding number of them, because to him, no call is ever a number. He gets fully immersed in every person’s story, takes the time to get to know them, and– in addition to a frighteningly large quantity of Red Bull– he is fueled by a fierce indignation when he sees authority figures abusing their power to silence less powerful people. I am glad that he is on my side.

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LoMonte is the executive director of the Student Press Law Center.

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CMM 10: Windsor Hanger, Stephanie Kaplan & Annie Wang, Her Campus Founders

CMM 10 is a spotlighting of the 10 individuals who have mattered most to college media over the past academic year.  This inaugural edition honors a mix of standout student journalists, innovative student media entrepreneurs, and impassioned outside advocates of campus press 2.0.  With a hat tip to the annual Time 100, the posts announcing each honoree include a few words of adoration penned by a close friend or colleague.  First up…

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Windsor Hanger, Stephanie Kaplan & Annie Wang

Founders and overseers, Her Campus

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Her Campus has impressed me since its start last fall.  Its founders, Harvard students at the time and now recent grads, are fearless.  They spotted a national niche- an opening for a student-produced “hub for everything college women need to know”- and they dove in with gusto.  The site now sports fresh content daily, dozens of student writers, significant social media followings, lots of unique visitors, growing media coverage and ad sales, and an expansion that includes school-specific My Campus branches.  Most impressively, through it all, its trio of founders and continued overseers seem to be having a great time.

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Left to right: Stephanie, Windsor, and Annie. Photo by Katerina Stavreva.

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Hanger: Endless Will, Always Willing to Learn

By Stephanie Kaplan

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I feel so lucky to have met and been able to work with my co-founder Windsor Hanger. Windsor and I met during our sophomore year at Harvard College, working on Harvard’s online lifestyle and fashion magazine. We quickly realized what an incredible team we made and how much we enjoyed working together. After taking over leadership of the magazine and seeing its performance skyrocket, we knew we had to take what we had learned there and turn it into a real business.  After countless hours- at all hours of the night- spent working, we entered and went on to win Harvard’s business plan competition with our plan for what is now Her Campus. We then spent last summer preparing Her Campus for its launch in September 2009, and then spent this year running our company.

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I love working with Windsor because she is so driven, such a go-getter, and so passionate.  Her endless will and energy have allowed us to accomplish so much in such a short time. She is always willing to learn and never scared of taking on a new project. Plus she’s a lot of fun to be around! Windsor is not only an amazing business partner, but also an amazing friend, and I feel so lucky to get to work with her every day!

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Kaplan is CEO and editor in chief of Her Campus.

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Kaplan: “A Business Partner and Friend“

By Annie Wang

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I have known Stephanie Kaplan for three years as a business partner and friend. I have found Stephanie to be an extraordinarily dedicated and effective leader, and a role model for other women. Stephanie is a passionate and entrepreneurial person who leverages her personal interests and expertise to solve needs in the world around her.  For example, her identification of a gap in media targeting college women led to our co-founding of Her Campus. Stephanie’s natural leadership and managerial skills have allowed Her Campus. expansionary mission to succeed.

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In addition to being a great business partner, Stephanie is also a good friend of mine. I lived with Stephanie in New York City last summer, and we shared some memorable experiences cooking dinner, talking about our days, and brainstorming for Her Campus.  These past few years, we’ve also been known to exchange e-mails featuring pictures of cute animals, especially kittens (Stephanie’s favorite!). I believe it’s rare to find a business partner and friend in the same individual; getting to know Stephanie has, without question, been one of the highlights of my college career thus far.

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Wang is CTO and creative director of Her Campus.

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Wang: “An Integral Part of Our Team”

By Windsor Hanger

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Annie Wang is one of the most impressive women I’ve ever met. In addition to her phenomenal web and graphic design skills, Annie is a VES (fine arts) major at Harvard, where she spends her time making animations and painting, among other things. In addition, Annie designs clothes, writes music, and plays four musical instruments.

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On top of all this, Annie is a phenomenal person to interact with. She is exceptionally kind and wears a smile on her face continually. I could not feel more blessed than I do having Annie on the team at Her Campus. She is an integral part of our team and an amazing business partner. I feel very lucky to have met her and to have been able to build a business with her by my side.

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Hanger is president and publisher of Her Campus.

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In the Spotlight: Suzanne Yada, San Jose State University

Suzanne Yada’s motto while toiling as a copy editor at a daily paper in Visalia, Calif.: “Errors.  Must.  Die.” Her new three-word motto, the one that has put her on the new media radar, is a call-to-arms to student journalists of generation now. As she puts it simply, “Grow some cojones.”

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The mantra was the centerpiece of a late December 2008 blog post that laid out her new year’s resolutions for j-students worldwide. The ‘cojones’ portion noted, “The world needs more people willing to ask tough questions. The first step to reversing journalism’s tarnished image is to have the guts to dig for information the public can’t easily find themselves, and be an advocate of unbiased, straightforward truth. If you can show depth and research with your reporting clips, if you can show you can ask the tough questions and be more than just a parrot for your interviewee, if you can fact-check the living snot out of your articles, you will rise to the top of the crop.”

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Suzanne Yada's advice for j-students: "1) Become invaluable, and 2) Network like mad."

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Yada’s stature rose dramatically in the journalism community immediately after the post’s publication. Her words carry extra weight because Yada is a j-student Yoda of sorts. She has been to the other side, and come back safely- working for three years in a professional newsroom before returning to school full-time. (She recently graduated from San Jose State University, where she majored in journalism and minored in business.) She has been involved in nine different media start-ups. She was an early adopter- launching a site in 1996 centered on Mystery Science Theater 3000. And she fully embraces the collaborative spirit of journalism 2.0, politely declaring in her popular blog’s tagline, “Lovely to meet you. Let’s get things done.”

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For her entrepreneurial spirit and journalistic cojones, Suzanne Yada very rightfully earns a spot in the CMM Spotlight. Below, she sounds off on the benefits of being a young journalist, all-things entrepreneurial, and the future of print.

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What motivated you to join the blogosphere?

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At first, my personal website was just about selfishly wanting to put my resume up. Then I started reading other people’s blogs and saying ‘Well this is really interesting stuff and I can also do that too without being so selfish,’ I guess you could say my goal changed and I wanted to start contributing to the ecosystem of information.  It was empowering.  I had the power to directly do research and present information that people would want and to be useful in their lives, and I didn’t have to wait around to be published for it.

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What is the advantage of being a student journalist circa 2010?

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The Internet makes it a completely even playing field.  It lets journalism students break through the rules of journalism that professionals can’t often do and to connect with audiences . . . that don’t vibe with old school media.  One example . . . the first blog post that I put up that got a lot of traction was New Year’s Resolutions for journalism students.  One of them was ‘grow some cojones’, and I think a professional journalist probably wouldn’t go that far to say something like that.  The post, and that line, was picked up and thrown about by Ryan Sholin first, then Jeff Jarvis and Jay Rosen.  They sort of picked up on that and I got on their radar screen.

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It’s the ability to say something gutsy that may not be ‘professional’ but meaningful. . . . A lot of professional journalists, they write well and my hats off to them.  I really am simultaneously in awe of what they do and also glad that I am able to take a different angle, because I think the uniform voice that has been sort of leading print journalism for so long, that uniform robotic voice, doesn’t engage a whole section of the population, especially the younger generation.  So I’m happy to be where I am.

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Is there an entrepreneurial revolution happening among j-students?

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I do definitely see a movement. . . . There is a realization that a piece of paper that says your name on it and your major is not a guarantee for a journalism job.  Another alternative is to make your own job.  Now is the best time, now more than ever is one of the most ripe times, because the ecosystem of information is so rapidly changing and the barriers to entry have just been decimated.  Anybody can do it.  It takes more than just ‘hey guys, let’s put up a website.’ It takes organization.  It takes understanding of what’s a good business, what can be self-sustaining and can do good journalism and put out solid, well-researched information that people want to know. . . .

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So is there a movement of entrepreneurial journalism among students?  Yes.  Is it widespread?  I wish it was more.  I really wish it was more.  What’s stopping it is both money and fear. For example, in my school, which you would think would be more ripe with it- it’s in the center of Silicon Valley, we’ve got all sorts of web-savvy people, you’ve got the audience in place, you’ve got the technology in place, you’ve got the entrepreneurial spirit in place- not a lot of people at least in the journalism school are really thinking outside the list of classes they need to take to graduate.

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What is your advice for budding student media entrepreneurs?

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It’s very vital for students who want to start their own things to know how other people started their own things.  You want to grab what’s good and what works from their efforts and leave out what didn’t work. . . . You want to ask yourself ‘What is this worth to me?  Why do I want to do this?‘  It’s a process of self-discovery.  You know, if you had all the money in the world, what would you do?

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Does print journalism have a future in our Webified world?

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I’m still interested in print.  There’s something to be said for having words in print rather than electrons.  I’m still writing for the campus newspaper. . . . And I’ve been involved in up to eight start-ups, or maybe nine . . . and every single one of them has an element of print to them.  My dad’s a printer, so I kind of have ink in my blood, and I worked at the printshop for three years.  Now am I excited about the day when we won’t have to cut down trees and ship them and use the gas money and oil to fuel the trucks to deliver them?  Yes.  You know, it’s such an inefficient way to deliver news and it always has been. . . . But I think there’s still a niche for print.  Print is going from the mainstream to niche and the Web is going to be mainstream.  I like the official channels and the unofficial channels.  I like that space in between.

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UPIU: “Building the J-Future” Atop Students Worldwide

A street preacher with a flair for the dramatic and controversial recently drew crowds of followers and protesters at Virginia Commonwealth University. As a Quill piece noted, upon witnessing the growing fervor, VCU junior Kate Lewanowicz “knew she had a compelling story,” one worth sharing with outside media and the world . . . wide web.  Cue UPIU.

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The offshoot of the United Press International wire service is unique among student news sites.  UPIU does not just publish content by j-students, it provides training, editing, and one-on-one mentoring to help their pieces sing.

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For example, Abhirup Bhunia, a journalism student in India, recently submitted an article draft for inclusion on the site.  It was the start of a productive journey: “[T]he story came back [to Bhunia] again and again, each time with notes from the UPIU senior mentor. Abhirup had to review his story for opinion and poor word choice.  He had to do more reporting than he initially thought necessary, and was told he couldn’t take quotes from other news sources.” The story eventually earned him a UPI byline, and Bhunia was the better journalist for it.  “It was real slogging,” he said, “but it did pay off.”

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The other standout component of UPIU is its worldwide reach.  It has partnered so far with 20 schools in 10 countries, leading to a cluster of student-produced stories touching on things such as Nigerians and the World Cup, Kenyans and antibiotic resistance, the U.S. and the oil spill, and China and homosexuality. The UPIU motto: “Connecting people one story at a time.”

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Below, UPIU’s impassioned international coordinator Harumi Gondo discusses the service’s awesomeness, its many facets, and the ways in which students and schools can become involved.

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What motivated you to begin UPIU, and what went into its creation?

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Over the year since UPI launched UPIU.com we’ve become all about journalism training- not free content. We want to leverage UPI’s solid reputation to attract aspiring journalists and improve foreign coverage.  I’ve not encountered another program that has such direct communication and relationships with journalism schools around the world. I think we are really unique in that aspect.  It’s been a great experience building something from the ground up.

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The hardest part has been getting in touch with the schools.  I’m starting to get requests from schools now, but for the longest time it meant working during the day communicating with the UPIU team in the U.S. and contacting U.S. schools and then staying up at night making phone calls to China and Australia and India! So many countries with so many different time zones!

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Sometimes the school websites’ English sites were just dead links or had no contact information whatsoever, or the voice on the other line didn’t speak English, or couldn’t hear me, or the line was too fuzzy. Once I stayed up until 3 a.m. for a scheduled phone appointment with a professor in Thailand: The man was on a rowdy bus filled with elementary school children headed for a very rural area that had bad reception. Boy, was I mad!

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Why does UPIU rock?

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The perk of UPIU is that submitted stories have the possibility of getting a UPI byline.  But the real gem of UPIU is that it offers j-students feedback and mentoring.  When an aspiring journalist submits a story, he/she gets in-depth feedback from the mentor within two to three days (sometimes the same day).  And our mentor is powerful. She once gave feedback on seventy stories in three days.

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In September we’ll be working with Rhodes University’s 280 students!  For j-students in the U.S. this may not be such a big deal (although I think it should be!), but for non-U.S. students this is an opportunity that we’re seeing is not offered in their schools.  Many professors have communications degrees and are heavy on theory, but not always on experience actually practicing shoeleather journalism.

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There was one very awesome video conference we did with Peking University j-students  that I think gave students a taste of what it’s like being in an actual newsroom. The UPIU mentor, Krista Kapralos, definitely cares about her mentees and tries not to push them too much if it’s not going to get results, but she’ll also stick to her guns if she needed to teach the student solid journalism.

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UPIU also offers the opportunity to see the work of journalism students around the world.  It’s interesting to see the different leanings and tendencies of j-students around the world.  Many Indian news organizations don’t make the same distinctions between news and opinion that U.S. news organizations do, and j-students there follow suit. The stories we see from U.S. students show a good understanding of journalistic writing, but they could do with a little help in getting their creative juices flowing when it comes to story topics.

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We’re a lean operation and flexible when it comes to good ideas: video conferences with schools all over the world at all kinds of crazy times, local school visits to teach j-students how to optimize their stories for search engines, and international chat sessions with passionate j-student from all over the world.

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How can students become involved with UPIU?

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Two ways: 1) Telling their journalism professors about UPIU so that we can work with their classes.  Or 2) Signing up themselves.  Some students submit their stories to UPIU.com and we never hear from them again, but we’re looking for users who are willing to put in the work to improve their journalistic skills.

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Kamil Zawadzki is a recent grad from Loyola University’s journalism program; he wrote to his dean about us:

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As some of you may know I’m a recent graduate from Loyola’s School of Communication. As I’ve started to look for jobs, I’ve also looked into freelancing and writing opportunities to help build up my portfolio and practice my writing, so that once I get the job I want, I can hit the ground running.  A great opportunity I have begun taking advantage of recently is UPIU.com, which is a sort of student writing offshoot and sub-division of the United Press International wire service.

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I would just like to put in my own two cents here and vouch for UPIU.com as a wonderful chance for journalism students to get some freelancing done and practice the basics of reporting, interviewing, and writing even while they are still in school.  While the Loyola Phoenix has weekly opportunities to write and contribute, and is a great award-winning student newspaper, Loyola students can only benefit from working on articles assigned by UPIU.com’s senior editors as there is much editorial oversight scrutinizing each writer and article to guarantee quality of work.

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This gives students a shot at improving their writing considerably through the constructive criticism, suggestions, and cooperation of the professional journalists who edit articles. As a bonus, works that are truly top-notch can be recommended by these editors to be submitted as features on UPI itself, bringing the writer even more exposure and the bragging rights of a byline on a major wire service.

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Articles that don’t pass muster to join the best of the best on UPI will nevertheless be posted on UPIU.com, with the author’s byline; if the writer is associated with an organization or school collaborating with UPIU.com, he or she will have an additional tag on their byline naming that organization (i.e., Jane Smith/Loyola University Chicago).

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Although I have just started writing for UPIU.com, I have nothing but wonderful things to say about it. My first article has gone through several major revisions and is now close to being submitted to qualify for the honor of a feature and byline on UPI; whether or not it makes it up there, the help I got from the editors has made it a much better piece over the past few days, and has offered me other learning lessons I can apply in future work.

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If the students are willing to put in the work, our mentor is willing to put in just as much time in mentoring and guiding the students; if a story generates income for UPI we are very open to sharing that revenue with the student.

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What posts, chats or other features are you excited to soon be rolling out?

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We are really excited about our Going Global program, where we work with a different school every week.  Going Global has a few steps:

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1) Introductory workshop via Skype and explain basic tips for writing and publicizing a great story.

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2) Students work during the semester on their stories.

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3) On the deadline date, students file their stories to UPIU.com.

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4) The UPIU senior mentor provides students feedback and recommends a few stories for UPI.com.

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5) The mentor meets with students via Skype.  She provides feedback on stories and explains the reasons some of the stories excelled.  She also announces the top three stories that received the most Web traffic.

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This year we have worked with or will be working with:

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Peking University (Beijing, China)

University of Wollongong (Wollongong, Australia)

Communication University of China (Beijing, China)

United States International University (Nairobi, Kenya)

Southeastern Louisiana University (Louisiana, US)

University of Lagos (Lagos, Nigeria)

University of Philippines Diliman (Manila, Philippines)

University of Philippines Los Banos (Los Banos, Philippines)

Temple University (Tokyo, Japan)

Michigan State University (Michigan, US)

Rhodes University (Grahamstown, South Africa)

Nanyang Technological University (Singapore)

West Virginia University (West Virginia, US)

University of Technology, Sydney (Sydney, Australia)

Jamia Millia Islamia (New Delhi, India)

Rutgers University (New Jersey, US)

Ohio University (Ohio, US)

Frostburg State University (Maryland, US)

St. Thomas University (Florida, US)

And looking for more!

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We’ll also be doing another international journalism student chat (check out the first one here), but this time it will be a Q&A with a student from one country (six students from six countries and observers who were also interested in chatting and discussing the issues became WAY too chaotic!).

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We also occasionally have pitch sessions with students on dimdim.com.  It is a browser-based (no need for downloading) video conferencing site where students who are working on some story ideas can pitch their ideas to our senior mentor.  It’s great because students can pitch their ideas via video, audio or chat to the mentor from their own homes.  Whenever we’re doing a pitch session I’ll tweet it out and anyone can come in and observe.

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A screenshot from the site featuring the first UPIU international j-students chat.

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Koretzky: “Why Your College Newspaper Matters”

It is a college media manifesto of sorts.  It is an open letter to journalism students worldwide.  It is an important reminder.  It is a wake-up call.  It is a call to arms . . . all via Michael Koretzky.

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Koretzky, the current volunteer adviser for The University Press at Florida Atlantic University (read more here), recently penned a piece featured atop Huffington Post College’s front page.  The promo title: “Why Your College Newspaper Matters.”

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Koretzky’s main point: Toiling on staff at a student newspaper teaches skills that are the lifeblood of almost every industry.  The campus paper is not meant simply as minor league training for a professional newspaper gig.  It is a time-tested trial run in creativity, financial discretion, ethics, marketing, new media, people skills, and time management . . . all on a deadline.  In Koretzky’s words, “No other extra-curricular activity on campus is better for your career- no matter what that is- than the newspaper.”

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In the piece- which I nodded and smiled while reading basically the entire way through- Koretzky cites incentives for students aspiring to follow numerous non-journalism career paths.  There are the expected connections to the legal, PR, and education fields.  But he mentions a few unexpected job boosts as well.

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For example, he describes a former staffer now in dental school: “[H]e wants to run his own dental practice, and he says he’ll have no problem navigating complicated insurance claims because he’s already dealt with the byzantine bureaucracy of FAU’s finance department.”  Or as Koretzky notes at the close:

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[M]y favorite was [a former University Press] business manager who volunteered to teach jail inmates in her spare time because she wanted to become an FBI profiler. She applied to a prestigious program, and her application cited how she deftly handled the dysfunctional personalities in both the jail and the newsroom- and that the latter was harder. She got in.

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Story Ideas Week: “Never Have I Ever…” (CSU’s Rocky Mountain Collegian)

This CMM series features a sampling of crazy cool, highly relevant or offbeat stories by student journalists that can be localized for different campus audiences- along with suggestions on ways to create and present that content. Next up…

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Never Have I Ever . . .

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The trio described it as a venture into the unknown, “a world where archers, jousters and warriors band together.” In a piece published earlier this summer in The Rocky Mountain Collegian at Colorado State University, two student reporters and a photographer describe their first foray into battlegaming, an unconnected offshoot of the live action role playing (LARP) community.

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The battlefield report is the opening feature in a new Collegian series: “Never Have I Ever…”.  It documents staffers’ experiences with an activity they have never tried before.  For “Never Have I Ever…Battlegamed,” the student team aligns with a battlegaming group one afternoon in a local park to engage in a war game. They describe the basic scene, the rules, the costuming, and the rush of the battle, with “each army destroying the other side a few times before stopping for a water break.”

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There is a subtle snarkiness to portions of the write-up, but an overall tone of respect, appropriate for this type of open-minded feature. As one member of the trio admits, “Who knew that hitting each other with foam swords could be so much fun?”

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The series has the potential to be effective for numerous reasons. It is lighthearted without being silly. It wisely recounts the adventure from a personal perspective, including the students’ occasional awkward thoughts and actions. And it offers a full multimedia package, in this case with a write-up, photos, and even a video recap.  The team also engages readers by requesting ideas for future activities in which they should take part.

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Other student press outlets should follow the Collegian‘s lead.  Recruit a team with the requisite skills (reporting, photography, multimedia) and personalities (including a sense of humor and sense of adventure).  Interact with student readers to determine their adventures.  Make the series regular. (This team plans a weekly set of excursions.  That may be too ambitious.) Establish a consistent tone- whether it be serious or semi-tongue-in-cheek (just don’t mock).

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Think outside the box on potential experiences- and utilize the university’s many resources, vocations, and activities.  Attend a random class/lab/sports practice.  Serve as an admissions tour guide.  Work the janitorial night shift. And play to the human element.  A feature of this type should be built atop the people participating in the activities- the student journalist first-timers and the experienced individuals acting as their guides.

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