Alcohol Ads and the Student Press: An Uneasy Relationship

At the dawn of yet another new year and a few weeks away from the start of yet another semester, one timeless collegiate tradition holds steady: student consumption of alcoholic beverages.

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Drinking is as much a part of the undergraduate experience as spring break trips, summer internships, and sleeping through 8 a.m. classes.  And so rightfully, most student news media report upon numerous facets of it and editorialize about its positives and ills.

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The one thing many student pubs do not do: run advertisements for it. No liquor store or convenience store sale announcements.  No restaurant or bar two-for-one or ladies-drink-free promos.  No homecoming weekend drink-till-you-drop special event teasers.

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Whether it’s due to a student outlet’s own policy, an affiliated school’s mandate or even full-blown state law, the ad space within a large majority of student media is kept alcohol-free.  The most common exceptions: ads from campus or national advocacy groups screaming ‘Just Say No’ to activities such as underage drinking, excessive drinking, and drinking and driving.

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The recent decision of the U.S. Supreme Court to not hear a challenge to Virginia’s pervasive ban on college newspaper alcohol advertising keeps this intriguing phenomenon in the spotlight.

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From my perspective, the main reasons student media should be allowed to run advertisements promoting alcohol, in moderation:

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• Alcohol is a legal product, unlike, say, marijuana.  Why shouldn’t it have the right to be promoted like everything else?

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• Editorial content and advertising are separate species.  A student newspaper that publishes a quarter-page ad about an establishment’s weekday drinks special is not endorsing the drinks special.  It is simply providing the establishment with a spot to tell people about it.

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• Alcohol advertisements, at least explicitly, promote only drinking, not underage drinking.

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• Alcohol ads are moneymakers.  There are a lot of clubs, bars, restaurants, liquor stores, etc. near campuses.  Why?  Because a lot of legal-age students, staff, and faculty drink.  A quality student media outlet is known as the voice of its school.  Why shouldn’t it allow popular places a chance to speak to the people they are obviously already regularly serving?

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• Not all ads apply to everyone.  The under-21 student set simply has to wait until drinking promos apply to them, similar to the broke students who have to wait until they have enough money to afford the advertised spring break cruises.

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• If allowed, alcohol advertising won’t be insane.  There will not be an anarchic explosion of ‘drink until you die’ inserts.

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• Campus pubs already publish pieces about drinking– bar reviews, party scene recaps, special reports on fake IDs, commentaries involving underage drinking, etc.  Student journalists are talking about, at times even advocating, drinking.  What makes an ad any different?

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• Alcohol ads are already EVERYWHERE, across all media.  (The Budweiser frogs and Clydesdales are basically national treasures.)  Children much younger than an incoming freshman see these ads.  Life goes on.

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• And finally, the non-alcohol argument… Above all, student media must be free to make their own decisions on what to run, within editorial content AND advertising.

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The main reasons student media do not run alcohol ads:

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• Most undergraduates are under 21, making drinking promos tantalizing but irrelevant to a majority of student media’s core audience.

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• Many student press outlets are school-controlled, making administrators wary of even the slightest semblance of drinking promotion coming from something under their watch.

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• Legality is not an end-all, be-all argument here.  Advertising is also a matter of discretion or taste.  For example, should student media run ads for strip clubs, sex shops, firearms, the KKK or get-rich-quick schemes?  The bottom line: Ads for numerous legal organizations, entities, and activities do not often or ever appear within a campus pub’s pages.

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• And finally, the moral argument… Drinking is a problem for many students. And many students are still coming of age.  An ad for alcohol may pressure them into behavior for which they are not yet ready or able to handle.

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What am I missing from either list? And what do you think overall of the sobering lack of drinking ads within the student press?

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College Bans Student from Campus for Newspaper Essay

One of the stranger news items to cross my path during the previous semester: A college in Maryland temporarily banned a student from setting foot on campus due to an article he wrote that was published in the student newspaper.

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Early last month, Charles Whittington, an Iraq war veteran, was suddenly told he was no longer allowed to attend classes at the Community College of Baltimore.  The school was so worried he may be a threat that administrators there put out a “notice of trespass,” making it illegal for him to be on CCB’s grounds.

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The cause for their concern: “War is a Drug,” an essay Whittington wrote for an English class that he later submitted to the Connection, the school’s monthly 5,000-circ. student paper.  According to a CNN report, the piece “details what [Whittington] calls his addiction to killing.”

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A portion of the essay: “I got used to killing and after a while it became something I really had to do.  Killing becomes a drug, and it is really addictive. . . . I still feel the addictions running through my blood and throughout my body.  When I stick my blade through his stomach or his ribs or slice his throat it’s a feeling that I cannot explain, but feels so good to me.”

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Whittington told CNN the essay was simply a means to cope and describe an emotion experienced to different degrees by some veterans- not hint at any machinations for civilian violence.  CCB administrators were unswayed, allowing him back on campus only after he passed a psychiatric evaluation.

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A college spokeswoman: “When you look in the era of post-Virginia Tech and the content and the nature that he wrote about in the article, it caused us concerns.  We had to take some action against Mr. Whittington to ensure the safety of the college.”

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My take: Yikes.  I’m much more afraid of the school than the student.  I suppose it’s a backward compliment about the power of the campus paper that something published within it was taken so seriously.  But my goodness, if a guy who has fought and killed for his country can’t wrestle with “Hurt Locker”-style feelings in print, what’s the point of having a platform for student news and views?

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To be clear, I personally find his almost-manic killing fixation disgusting.  In letters to the editor published in the subsequent issue of Connection, others seem to agree with me.  There are also separate issues with the validity of his descriptions of *how* he killed enemy soldiers and the unfortunate usage of the phrase “rag heads.”

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But the larger value of the work holds steady even amid those concerns: He writes powerfully about a very real condition that was triggered by his participation in a conflict that is defining modern times.  The guy earned an “A” for the essay in class.  His teacher was the one who told him to have it published!  To then not only punish him for his apparently good work, but also go so far as to equate him with the Virginia Tech psycho, is the unkindest cut of all.

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Community College of Baltimore officials, this is your notice of trespass: Please do not set foot in my sights until you pass a free press evaluation.

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New Q Magazine at Yale Celebrates Queer Experience

“Q is coming out!” This exclamatory greeting kicks off the press release announcing college media’s latest creation: Q, a lifestyle magazine produced by students at Yale University.

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It premiered at Yale earlier this month, in the wake of a marketing blitz that included the distribution of 1,000 condoms on campus.  According to its publisher Alice Song and editor Jake Conway, both Yale seniors, “Its mission is to serve as a lifestyle guide to students on campus through the celebration of the queer experience. . . . It exalts, but does not sensationalize, sex. Q pushes notions of journalistic propriety, but is very relatable to college students. Sex makes us human. We want to convey that in our pages.”

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Q follows in the pioneering footsteps of a number of modern student sex and lifestyle magazines, including X at Washington University in St. Louis, Vita Excolatur at the University of Chicago, and Squirm at Vassar College. (Self-promotion alert: The stories of these magazines and others are told for the first time in my book!).

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Q‘s contribution to this emerging student press sub-genre: It is solely LGBTQ-oriented.  The magazine’s inaugural edition features an array of content and art– from a personal essay on Yale’s “cruising” culture to a historical report “discussing bed sharing between Yale men in the nineteenth century.”

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Even the wonderfully snarky blog IvyGate calls Q “surprisingly tactful and awesome.” As a related post notes, “[W]e have to admit, it’s pretty f*cking great. The issue contains testimonies from ten gay, lesbian, and transgender Yale students, including one by former West Point cadet Katie Miller, who came out on the Rachel Maddow show in front of a national audience.  Sure, the mag has plenty of juicy details, but it’s also got its share of insights. . . . Also of note in the issue: a picture of Dr. Strangelove holding a giant pink dildo. Very apropos.”

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2011 CMA-CBI Convention: “Don’t Just Sit There. Do Something.”

In mid-March, more than 1,200 student journalists and their advisers will gather at the Marriott Marquis in Manhattan’s Times Square for a convention with the savviest slogan this side of “Got milk?” and “Where’s the beef?”

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The 2011 CMA-CBI Spring College Media Convention has a six-word command for its participants: “Don’t Just Sit There. Do Something.” Organized by its director Michael Koretzky and assistant director Michele Boyet, CMA in NYC ’11 will sport everything from chicken salad to “real, live Muppets.”

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Koretzky and Boyet organized the convention in part via a Post-It wall.

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Among the planned highlights: a legal advice consultation booth manned by SPLC executive director Frank LoMonte; a “Weird Careers in Media” session; on-site publication critiques;  the Apple Awards for top-notch student press work in a variety of categories; and me!  (I’ll be taking part in a few sessions, including leading a talk on successfully launching a student newspaper sex column.)

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The convention website already sports a full schedule breakdown by day and track (advertising, ethics, newspaper, magazine, etc.), info on the Marquis, and a list of pre-convention workshops.

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REGISTER TODAY

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Oregon Daily Emerald to Publish Commemorative Book on Football Season

The Oregon Daily Emerald is entering the book publishing business.  Staffers at University of Oregon’s top-notch student newspaper are currently writing, editing, and laying out a commemorative book on UO’s magical football season.  The title: “Duck Season: Oregon’s Improbable Flight to the National Title Game.”

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According to ODE EIC Nora Simon, the book will be out two weeks after the BCS battle royale with Auburn.  It will include feature stories, full recaps of each game in separate chapters, a foreword by the university president, and photos taken by staff and submitted by the UO faithful.  Simon: “It will be the first student newspaper-produced hard-bound commemorative book.”

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Emerald publisher Mike Thoele: “Through the serendipity of this magical football year, we have students dealing with a publishing firm of national stature, meeting pressure-cooker deadlines and putting a finished book on store shelves within days of the championship game. . . . Readers are going to be treated to the viewpoint of student journalists covering their contemporaries.  No other set of writers and photographers is so uniquely positioned to depict the campus impact of a historic season.”

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Ten Student Newspapers Sporting the Most Facebook Fans

Facebook is funny within collegemediatopia.  It is an active and interactive networking tool for some student news outlets and an absolute dead zone for others.

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In the first surveying of the student press Facebook landscape, Drake University multimedia journalism instructor Chris Snider was surprised by the small-ish followings for campus newspapers, especially when compared to their professional counterparts. As he wrote earlier this month, “I currently track the top newspapers on Facebook . . . This made me wonder which college newspapers were doing the best job growing a following on Facebook.  I mean, Facebook is firmly entrenched into the college lifestyle, so surely these college newspapers have tens of thousands of followers on Facebook.  Apparently not.  But they are getting there.”

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The best of the best, among student papers, simply in terms of its following: The Daily Tar Heel.  Proof of its popularity: The paper added at least nine new fans to its Facebook page while I wrote this post.

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Below is a list of the ten student papers currently sporting the most Facebook fans, the numbers accurate as of Sunday afternoon.  [Note: Snider’s sampling is not all-inclusive- focusing only on student papers and only those published at BCS schools- but it does provide a glimpse of where the social networking giant is being utilized most effectively by Facebook-generation journalists.]

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1. The Daily Tar Heel, UNC, 5,984 fans

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2. The Daily Collegian, PSU, 4,988 fans

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3. The Indiana Daily Student, Indiana University, 4,905 fans

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4. The Lantern, Ohio State University, 3,752 fans

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5. The Crimson White, University of Alabama, 3,739 fans

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6. The Daily Reveille, Louisiana State University, 3,183 fans

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7. The Daily Californian, University of California-Berkeley, 3,137 fans

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8. The Iowa State Daily, Iowa State University, 2,864 fans

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9. The Michigan Daily, University of Michigan, 2,489 fans

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10. The Daily Gamecock, University of South Carolina, 2,374 fans

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Viral Video: “So You Want to Be a Journalist?”

A slice of the j-geek crowd on Twitter has been buzzing about a funny new video making the rounds.  It is titled simply, “So You Want to Be a Journalist?”

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The roughly two-and-a-half-minute vid– created via xtranormal– features a pair of cartoon bears discussing one bear’s journalism career options.

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The naive aspiring journo bear wants a glamour gig with the Gray Lady and to forever feel the reporting rush he once received covering an all-night campus protest for his college newspaper.  The cynical journo bear warns him that right now reality is far from fantasy within the field.

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A snippet from the chat’s start:

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Bear 1: I would like to make a difference.  I would like to meet the president.  I want to work for the New York Times.

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Bear 2: Would you like to write about pork belly futures for a trade magazine based in Topeka, Kansas?

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Bear 1: No.  I want to write for the New York Times.  I want to live in a big apartment in Greenwich Village and go to cool restaurants every night with my exciting friends, like on TV.

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Bear 2: Would you like to live in your parents’ basement and work for the local weekly on a contract basis without health benefits?

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It does not quite hold up to “His Girl Friday,” but the back-and-forth is fairly quick and frequently humorous.  Enjoy.

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In the Spotlight: Rob Tricchinelli, Public Editor, Cornell Sun

In an April 2009 introduction, Rob Tricchinelli asked readers of The Cornell Daily Sun, simply, “What do you like?  What do you hate?  What’s fair?  What’s not? What is the Sun doing well?  Poorly?  What’s being missed?“

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The questions, in many ways, define his job scope.  As the Sun‘s public editor, Tricchinelli acts as a self-described reader’s representative, answering their queries and asking them on their behalf about various aspects of the paper’s editorial decision-making, coverage scope, and journalistic ethics.  As portions of his column headlines reveal, he touches on matters of misinformation and underreporting, sensitivity and nuance, readability and relevance, and process and practice.

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He is one of the few– and possibly only– individuals to serve an ombudsman-like role within college media.

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As I wrote early last month, while maybe outlandish for many student news outlets from a practical perspective, the idea of adding a public ed. definitely has merit. Especially when mega-controversies engulf the college press, there is often no conduit through which individuals can channel critiques– except for calls, e-mails, and letters to the editor to the very people being blasted

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Tricchinelli, a third-year Cornell University law student with a journalism master’s degree, is that conduit.  His exact affiliation with the newspaper is murky, by design. In his words, “I’m not a member of the paper’s staff in a traditional sense. Instead, I’m an independent ‘editor’– appointed instead of elected by the staff.”  Got that?

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Independent is the key word in that breakdown, allowing Tricchinelli to critique, probe, and provide wisdom to readers and staff without fear of being fired.  He is simply present, on the periphery, ready and willing to lend his perspective.  As he wrote me, “The Sun can’t dismiss me as a columnist if I write something critical, but I readily concede that I have no control over the editorial decision-making.  If reporters and editors want to ignore my advice, they’re free to.”

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Rob Tricchinelli's column runs on alternate Mondays. (Top photo courtesy of Tricchinelli.)

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For his dedicated public ed. service to the Sun over the past 20 months, Tricchinelli deservedly earns a spot in the CMM Student Journalist Spotlight.  Below, he shares a bit more about his position, some of the issues he’s tackled, and the benefits of a student press reader’s rep.

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Describe your role as the Sun’s public editor.

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It’s not markedly different from an ombud position at a professional newspaper. I try to act as a go-between for readers and Sun staffers. If readers have constructive critiques of the Sun‘s coverage, I want to hear them.  I use my column to give voice to reader complaints.  I independently assess the merits of those complaints and I write about them.  It works the other way, too.  I’ve tried to explain how certain stories have come together and how certain stories have come apart.

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What makes you especially suitable for the position?

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I have a master’s in print journalism and worked briefly as a copy editor before I came to law school, which is what I’m doing now. I have no real interest in reporting or editing at the campus level again, but I still am very passionate about journalism. I thought that this position was a good opportunity for me to use my experience productively, so I happily applied when the Sun advertised the opening. I also had no ties to the Sun when I started. I had no preconceived notions of what it was like, which really enabled me to form suitably objective opinions on its overall quality. [Note: More about his background here.]

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In your opinion, why is the public editor positon a positive for the campus press?

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Credibility, mostly. It demonstrates that the students who run the paper are receptive to and accountable to their readers.  I think it also helps a university like Cornell, which has no journalism school, because a public editor column can address basics without sounding too patronizing. It’s true that actually reporting and writing is the best experience (compared to classes), but it’s understandable that without a j-school, some fundamentals might otherwise fall by the wayside.

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What have been the most challenging or memorable issues brought to your attention as public editor?

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A few come to mind. . . . Scoops. In my tenure, the Sun has had two front-page stories that turned out to be incorrect: (1) Last year, the paper reported that upperclass undergraduates would soon teach freshman writing seminars.  And (2) This year, the paper reported that while Cornell’s endowment plummeted, a top university official got rich. Both stories had a similar flaw: underreporting.

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The first one relied exclusively on one quote from one professor, and the second didn’t fully explore the merits of why the official was given a bonus. Both were important reminders to find extra sources and carefully examine all the links that make up a story. Personally, the “here’s what happened and here’s where we go from here” columns are the most enjoyable and fruitful.

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[Another memorable issue] Sensitivity.  I’ve received more letters on the Sun‘s coverage of student deaths than on any other topic, and those kinds of stories always have a heightened need for judicious reporting. Emotions always run high, and it’s difficult but necessary to report those stories. Often, people complain that reported details infringe on the privacy of the recently deceased, but news organizations have a duty to report newsworthy details.

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What’s your advice for papers looking to follow in the Sun‘s stead and add a public editor to the staff?

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I think the best public editor candidates are those with journalism experience but little or no prior connection to the newspaper (besides the familiarity one develops by reading it). I think a previous staffer is a poor choice, because he/she undoubtedly has personal connections to many of the people still on staff. I think a faculty adviser or professor is a less-than-ideal choice, too, just because a faculty member might view the public editorship as a teaching position, which it probably isn’t.

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I would also advise that those papers immediately and permanently ban the word “discuss” as the main verb in all display type– headlines, captions, kickers, decks, all of it. Ledes, too.  I cringe every time I see it.

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‘Operation Ivy League’ Bust a Big Draw for Columbia’s Student Press

The recent drug bust at Columbia University known as “Operation Ivy League” has been a journalistic triumph and online traffic windfall for the school’s student news media.

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Staffers at both The Columbia Spectator and Bwog– “the 24/7 blog incarnation” of the student news magazine Blue and White– have been covering OIL nonstop since reports first surfaced last week about “a curious police presence on [the school’s] frat row.”  The operation was “an undercover police sting that culminated in the arrest of five [Columbia] students from three fraternities accused of dealing cocaine, marijuana, LSD and Adderall on campus.”

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A screenshot of the Bwog's first post on the bust.

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A screenshot of a portion of a Spectator photo slideshow on "Operation Ivy League."

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Bwog editor in chief Eliza Shapiro, a Columbia junior, especially leapt into action after an early morning tip about the student arrests.  As The Cutline, a Yahoo! news blog, reported, “She had planned on devoting her day to the 55 pages’ worth of essays due before the semester wraps up in another week.  Instead, she spent the next five hours holed up in her dorm room reporting, blogging, editing and managing a team of fellow Bwog journalists who had volunteered to help cover what was snowballing into a massive event.”

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Since the event, traffic for the Bwog and Spectator sites have soared.  As Shapiro put it simply, “It’s the most-read stuff we’ve ever had.”  The outlets have also been breaking a number of “micro-scoops” in their continuing coverage.  And their stories have been linked and cited by numerous outside news media.

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Sree Sreenivasan, a digital media professor and dean of student affairs at Columbia’s j-school: “For decades, student journalists on campuses all over the country have been front-line reporters on stories that draw national and international attention. New technologies have served to make the pace, scope and reach of such stories infinitely greater.”

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University of Colorado Student Newspaper: “We Don’t Quit”

As the “structure and future of journalism” collapsed this semester at the University of Colorado, one foundation held steady: The CU Independent.

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The student newspaper reported with grace and gusto about a bevy of big stories in fall 2010- including the controversial “discontinuance” (read: quick, painful death) of the university’s journalism school.

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In an eloquent semester-in-review piece published Friday, Independent EIC Kate Spencer described staffers’ passion while covering fires- actual ones (the late October Boulder Canyon blazes) and metaphorical ones (the j-school disbandment brouhaha).

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Two themes emerge within the editorial: 1) Amid journalism’s discontinuance (or the administration’s latest buzzword, “strategic realignment“) at CU, the paper will remain.  And 2) The present, and future, of journalism are in j-students’ hands.

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Spencer calls the Independent both “the crux of journalism” and “the future of journalism education at CU.” In her words,

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While others discuss the structure and future of journalism, we are out there actually doing it, providing a model for the future. . . . We don’t quit doing our jobs when the university announces it wants to rethink our journalism education. We don’t quit doing our jobs when fires rage across the city of Boulder. We don’t quit doing our jobs when we’re sick, tired, have midterms, have homework, break up with our boyfriends and girlfriends, or just want a break.  We don’t quit.  If nothing else, that is what this semester has taught us all. It has taught us how to stand strong in the face of adversity, and how to keep fighting. News is what we do, and we will never quit. Neither will generations of journalists who come after us.

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College Radio’s FM Footprint Fading: Is Online the Answer?

Does college radio still deserve a “terrestrial footprint“?

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Student stations on or near campuses nationwide continue to provide undergrads with invaluable on-air experience and act as the last bastions of non-mainstream music promotion.  But their relevancy to student listeners and survival prospects on the FM dial are under renewed scrutiny.

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According to a Sunday New York Times report, “[A]s colleges across the country look for ways to tighten budgets amid recession-induced shortfalls, some administrators- most recently in the South- have focused on college radio, leading even well-endowed universities to sell off their FM stations.”

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Of course, college radio has never been a cash cow or even a break-even financial enterprise.  Repositioning as online-only outlets will certainly save the stations- and by extension their supporting schools- money, but at what cost?

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An in-progress map of U.S. student-run, non-commercial radio stations. Click on the screenshot to access the related site.

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KTRU, Rice University’s student-run station, recently had its FM signal sold by the school.  In the words of its station manager, “DJing for an Internet radio station is not quite the same thing as DJing over the air.  We don’t have that inherent sense of locality that you would on the air. . . . For the immediate and near future, FM is still the most important form of radio.”

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Yet, even some of college radio’s staunchest supporters admit a shift in form and function might be needed to ensure its analog presence does not fall entirely into the Internet abyss.

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As an op-ed earlier this week in Virginia Tech’s Collegiate Times argued, “[I]f students at other universities want to keep this traditional media, they need to find creative ways to drive traffic to the FM stations. . . . For instance, what if college dining halls were to play college radio stations? . . . Perhaps campus radio stations should broadcast from important on-campus events, when possible. They might seek revenue by allowing student organizations to pay for discounted advertising on the airways. . . . [I]t can amplify the college perspective, providing an important avenue where students can voice concerns or advise others on social issues. Programming does not have to be limited to unconventional music styles.”

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Random Tweets About College Media: “Whatever Happened to the Student Newspaper?”

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Campus Newspaper Shames Students Selling Rose Bowl Tix

The Badger Herald named names.  In an editorial published Sunday, the student newspaper at the University of Wisconsin-Madison listed more than 30 students it considered “the worst people on campus.”

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The students’ misdeeds, according to the paper: They purchased coveted tickets to the Rose Bowl (sold out in 20 minutes) and then immediately attempted to resell them online, in many cases for a much higher price.

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As the editorial notes, “Face value was $150. Some were trying to get the tickets for more than $400 a pop.  Truly, there is a special place in Hell for people who buy Rose Bowl tickets with the sole intention of profiting from them. It is entirely unfair to those who actually love this football team and were counting on a cheap face value ticket in order to make the trip to Pasadena an economic reality.”

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According to an editor’s note, the piece was meant to be a wry attempt at capturing the frustration of the Badger faithful left without a ticket.  But its targeting of specific students and an earlier version that encouraged readers to “ridicule the ever-loving shit out of [those students]” has stirred controversy and “caught the attention of news organizations at both the state and national level.”

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As an editorial response in The Daily Cardinal at the University of Louisville noted, “While the negativity toward those selling their tickets online was already present, the Herald‘s decision to single out 38 students has greatly magnified the issue. Multiple members of the list have received harassments, verbal attacks and death threats against both them and their families.”

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The related question: Are the students accused of reselling their tickets really deserving of such a public shaming, even if it’s slightly in jest?  While the Herald did not contact the students it listed to discover their resale motivations, comments on the story and follow-up reports by other news media have painted a cloudier picture than a singleminded ‘greed is good’ obsession.

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Some have stated that students’ decisions to resell is nothing more than their capitalistic right- and in a few cases are helping fund noble efforts.  As the mother of one student on the ‘worst’ list stated, “Although it would be a dream come true, [the student] cannot afford the trip to the Rosebowl, BUT he IS using his profit [from reselling his ticket] to pay his (and his girlfriend’s) expenses to go to South Carolina to work for Habitat for Humanity over Christmas break.”

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The vitriol and enormity of the response to the piece has prompted editors to close the online comments section beneath it.  A statement added roughly a day after the editorial’s original posting reads: “This piece is by no means meant to be a call to take action against the [students named], simply a tongue-in-cheek commentary about an unfair ticketing practice, and we apologize if it was taken as anything more than that.”

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What do you think– a rightful scolding of students or an editorial step too far???

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Harry Potter Exclusive: Ball State Student Designer Explains How Daily Prophet Came to Life

“It was like I was in Harry Potter’s wizarding world,” said Jen Minutillo, “even if it was just for a day.”

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The Ball State Daily News chief designer recently spearheaded the creation of a special issue for the student paper: The Daily Prophet, the newspaper of record in the land that Rowling built.  “I wasn’t going to do a sort-of attempt at replicating this paper because I know fans put so much stock in J.K. Rowling’s attention to detail in her books,” said Minutillo, a senior secondary English education major earning an additional license in journalism.  “It was either go big or go home.”

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The result: a big, interactive success that went viral on Ball State University’s campus and online.  The BSDN’s version of the Prophet featured articles about various aspects of muggle living, Quidditch match recaps, and a confession from a BSU student about the “unforgivable movie sin” of not seeing all the HP films. A separate faux teaser promised “breaking news updates about Azkaban breakouts [and] He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’s whereabouts.”

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Most impressive, Minutillo and her team put together a layout truly embodying the Potter Prophet, including the shifting vertical-horizontal specs and a front page video news report and photo slideshows that come to life (online at least) with a simple point and click.

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The front page of the BSDN's Daily Prophet. Click on the image to travel to the site where the page is featured, enabling you to access the photo slideshows and video news report.

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Aly Brumback, the impassioned Daily News editor in chief: “As a fan of the movies and books myself, I thought it sounded like a great idea. I talked to the Daily News‘ adviser John Strauss to see what he thought, and he said it sounded like a really fun idea. . . . [Jen] is a fantastic designer, so I knew it would turn out great. . . . This is probably my favorite issue of my semester as editor in chief. It definitely exceeded expectations.”

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For her über-impressive design chops and outside-the-box brainstorming, Minutillo joins an array of other student media muggles in the CMM j-student spotlight. Below, she explains how she created the Prophet, reader reactions to the finished product, and the level of her personal HP passion.

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How did The Daily Prophet first take shape?

Two weekends before the “Deathly Hallows” movie premiere, roughly 15 to 20 Daily News staff members got together at my apartment for a 16-hour Harry Potter movie marathon. About halfway through the movies, sort of jokingly, but mostly seriously, I suggested to Aly Brumback that we turn A1 into the Daily Prophet on the day of the midnight premiere.

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I knew that in the heat of the moment everyone would love the idea, but it I was afraid when I really pushed it that it would somehow get derailed.  Fortunately, that didn’t happen. Ultimately, there really never was any big grand plan.  I knew- judging by my own level of obsession- that other students would immediately recognize the Daily Prophet nameplate, and it was the best way to play off the excitement of the day.  I just had an image in my head of how all this awesome Harry Potter-themed content would look laid out like the Daily Prophet, and it sort of came to life from there.

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What were the toughest parts of bringing the Prophet to life?

The biggest challenge in the design process itself was figuring out how to replicate the nameplate without it looking like a really bad attempt at using the pen tool. It didn’t take long for me to figure out that whoever designed the paper for the movie created his own font, so it was impossible to find one already on my computer that really matched the DP.

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So, the challenge was 1) Trying to find an image with a high-enough resolution for me to be able to accurately hand-draw the letters. And 2) Actually doing the drawing. I drew and re-drew the nameplate several times before I came up with something I thought did the original nameplate justice. I spent a lot of time on this because I knew that would be the first thing people noticed about the page, so I knew I had to do it perfectly.

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The second challenge came on the actual production day.  Somewhere along the line, it was never communicated to the advertising department that we wanted the front page to be open with no ads.  So when I sat down to transfer my work to the newsroom’s computer, opened up the page, and saw a giant bright red ad on the front, I had a major freak-out/raging moment.  I had already done the entire layout before the production night, so I had to quickly figure out how I was going to move up all the content without it looking smooshed or forced.  After accepting that there was no chance we could move the ad, I just started playing around with the design to make it fit like we needed it to.  It all worked itself out.

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How did your team embed the videos and slideshows into the front page?

The video and photo slideshows were actually the work of design editor David Downham and graphics editor Mark Townsend.  After I finished the page, they took the InDesign file and used some of InDesign’s basic interactivity/Flash features to embed the click-through slideshow in the photo frames that were already on the page.  The video was put together by videographer Tamaya Greenlee, and David and Mark embedded it in the same way as the photos.  Although I’m not certain on the technical specifics, I believe everything they used to put the .swf file together was available in InDesignCS5 under the “interactive” panel.

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What is your favorite part of your Prophet?

My favorite part of the layout is the package headline “MUGGLES PACK THEATER TO SEE THE CHOSEN ONE.” I was so happy I found a font in our library that was very similar to the DP font, and the fact that I was able to get MUGGLES huge on the front just made me laugh and smile. I knew as soon as people saw the paper- even if they didn’t immediately recognize the Daily Prophet nameplate- they would make the Harry Potter connection to muggles. On the whole, though, I just really loved all the little details that went into it- from picking fonts that mimicked those in the real paper to adding the little details like “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’s whereabouts” and our Twitter breaking news promo. I wanted it to seem as real as possible while still keeping our readers/advertisers happy, so I think those details were like the cherry on the sundae.

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Another page of the Prophet.

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What has been the response on campus?

People went wild over the paper! I grabbed a couple extra copies for myself, but when other students in my classes saw me looking at the paper they all asked if they could have a copy or if I knew where to find more.  Usually the arts & journalism building gets the most traffic during the day because of its location on campus, but rarely are all the copies of the paper taken by the end of the day.  Other Daily News staff members told me every copy of the paper in that building was gone by about 2 p.m. that day, and the stacks in many other buildings where the paper was delivered were gone, too.  Aside from that, I got a ton of Facebook and Twitter messages from friends, and some strangers, telling me they loved the page and a lot of re-tweets of the link to the PDF and Charles Apple’s blog about it.

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What is your personal level of Harry Potter obsession?

Surprisingly, I’m a bit new to the wizarding world of Harry Potter.  I refused to watch the movies or read the books growing up because I was one of those kids who never wanted to do what everyone else was doing.  It wasn’t until this summer that my boyfriend forced me to watch the movies. I became obsessed almost instantaneously.  I read all the books between July and now and I’m eager to start re-reading them all.  I wore my Daily Prophet T-shirt and Gryffindor scarf to the movie premiere.  I also watched all the movies at least two to three times each in the week before the premiere.  I tried to justify that über-nerdiness by saying I was doing research for the A1 page- I would watch the movies on my laptop and pause on spots where the DP was shown so I could study the layout!

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Were there advantages to working on the Prophet at a student pub?

I took advantage of the opportunity and the freedom working for a college publication has because I knew this would probably never be possible at a professional publication.  I had friends who are working professionally now message me throughout the day saying they were so jealous that they’d never be able to do something like that anymore, so it made me really contemplate the mentality professional publications have right now.  I saw people reading our paper who would normally never read it.  Maybe it’s some of this spontaneity and sheer fun that professional publications need to keep readers from ditching the print product and going online.

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Potter and Minutillo

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Student Columns Name, Define Terms for ‘Generation Sex’

Half-night stands. Dance-floor erections. Dating with a lowercase ‘d.’ A hookup with fries on the side. House booty. Hungry mungries. McThreesomes. And the stride of pride.

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The new sex terms of the current student generation have an unlikely primary source- the college newspaper. Over the past decade, college newspaper sex columns have coined or publicly solidified the largest amount and most varied set of words, acronyms, and euphemisms related to student sex and socializing.

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As one former student sex columnist told me, “My generation, this is what we need to be talking about, and it’s a discussion that needs to happen on our own terms. We’re not Baby Boomers or part of Generation X. We’re Generation Sex.”

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Below is a sampling of this generation’s sexual lingua franca. The vocabulary hints at a campus culture in which romance is dead, monogamy is dying, and, as one columnist puts it, “sex is sex is sex is sex.”

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For a complete list of more than 200 new sex and dating terms, check out my book Sex and the University: Celebrity, Controversy, and a Student Journalism Revolution.

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Bangability vs. personality scale (n.): a comparison of an individual’s physical attractiveness with his or her mental capacity and social traits.

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Carpe datem (v.): a spin off the phrase carpe diem (Latin for “seize the day”). In this case, to “seize the date” means to more actively attempt dating instead of hooking up and to interact with relationship partners in person instead of relying upon electronic means of communication. Example) “If you care to continue a friendship or instigate a relationship beyond the safe bounds of a computer or cell phone, carpe datem. Pick up the phone. Get off IM. Take your cell number off of Facebook. Make actual plans — ones that don’t require electrical outlets.”

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Dance floor erection (DFE) (n.): an erection experienced while dancing in public. Ex) “[Y]ou start dancing with cute Bobby… Bobby seems to love it: Whoa! What’s that? Yup, that’s right, it seems you have backed into, well, Bobby’s bobby. Bobby appears to be pitching his tent on your campsite. To put it bluntly, Bobby has a Dance Floor Erection. He’s been struck with a DFE. Poor kid can’t even control it.”

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Dating with a lowercase ‘d’ (n.): the more casual one-on-one activities historically known as courting that “on the relationship spectrum… falls after hooking up but before monogamous commitment.”

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DUI (v.): dialing under the influence of alcohol, typically to solicit sex.

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To read the rest of the post, click here

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