Archive for November, 2011

Penn State’s Daily Collegian Sex Column ‘Mounting Nittany’ Temporarily Pulled

Posted in College Media, Journalism, Journalism Ethics, Student Newspaper on November 30, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

The buzzworthy sex column launched earlier this semester in The Daily Collegian at Penn State University has been placed on temporary hiatus in light of the sex abuse scandal that continues to overwhelm campus.

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As I wrote previously on CMM, the early October premiere of “Mounting Nittany,” the first sex column published within the Collegian, provoked a massive online response.  In subsequent weeks, it maintained a cult love-it-or-hate-it following.

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Yet, as Jim Romenesko first reported yesterday on his eponymous site (I consider this his first post-Poynter mini-scoop), the column has not been run since a piece on hooking up was published at the start of the month– two days prior to Jerry Sandusky’s arrest.

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Daily Collegian editor-in-chief Lexi Belculfine told Romenesko the column initially did not appear in print simply due to the bevy of breaking news and related space constraints, including an influx of letters to the editor about the scandal.

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As she noted, “In the week that followed, we offered Kristina Helfer [the columnist] the opportunity to write a sex column on the scandal or sexual assault, but she decided that based on the tone of the previous columns that it would not be ‘respectful to those who have been affected by sexual assault’ to write the column that week. Instead, we ran another columnist’s piece on the importance of not being a passive bystander.  Looking forward, based on the current situation and mood at Penn State, we have decided to remove the column for the time being.”

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My take: A smart, respectful move given the circumstances.  And just one of the many excellent editorial decisions being made by Collegian staffers as they continue their comprehensive coverage of the scandal.

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Related

“Penn State Sex Abuse Scandal: 10 Spin-Off Story Ideas for Your Student Newspaper”

“Penn State Daily Collegian Covering Widening Sex Abuse Scandal Nonstop”

Daily Collegian’s First Sex Column Goes Viral at Penn State

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Florida Student Columnist to Gator Fans: Don’t Be Mad at Urban Meyer for Taking Ohio State Job

Posted in College Media, Journalism, Student Newspaper on November 29, 2011 | 2 Comments »

Former University of Florida football coach Urban Meyer is now a Buckeye. In a press conference coronation yesterday, Ohio State University announced what had been leaking in sporting news circles for a week: Meyer, the former Gainesville hero who led the Gators to two BCS titles, was relocating to Columbus– and pocketing uber-millions in a down economy (something The New York Times focused on).

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How did the student press cover the news?  Both The Lantern at OSU and The Independent Florida Alligator at UF featured the story atop their respective homepages.

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The Lantern also put together a graphic sampling OSU student responses to the hire– optimistic about his experience, intrigued about the new spread offense, excited about the positive influence Meyer will have on young Buckeye quarterback Braxton Miller, and only slightly nervous that high expectations may not mesh with incoming NCAA sanctions.

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In a separate, classy commentary, Lantern staffer Michael Periatt reminded students to not forget interim coach Luke Fickell.  ”Maybe Fickell made some mistakes,” he writes.  ”Maybe he was put in an impossible situation.  But Fickell took over the program at its lowest point, at a time when many wouldn’t touch it   And he did it without hesitation. . . . [T]his is Meyer’s team now.  He will be the face of the program. . . . But don’t forget about the coach that led them there– the coach that cared so much it almost brought him to tears.  The season may be forgettable, but the coach deserves to be remembered.”

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The Alligator also took the high road Tuesday.  The most high-profile commentary, by sports editor Tom Green, is a call-to-arms for Gator fans to get over their anger at Meyer leaving UF and then popping up at another national powerhouse a year later. As the well-written piece begins:

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“Since reports began to surface last week about former Florida coach Urban Meyer taking the job at Ohio State, I have heard a lot of different reactions from Gators fans.  Some feel betrayed. Some feel they were lied to.  Others are disappointed or frustrated with the way everything played out.  However, there’s one reaction I have yet to see from the Florida faithful– empathy.  I understand all the negative reactions from Florida fans; it’s frustrating to see your coach retire, and then come back not even a year later to take his ‘dream job.’  But that’s exactly what Meyer did.  He took his dream job.  The opportunity of a lifetime approached him, and when it knocked Monday, he answered.”

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For-Profit Student Newspapers: New College Media Trend?

Posted in College Media, Future of Journalism, Journalism, Student Newspaper on November 28, 2011 | 3 Comments »

Can the student press turn a profit?  Michael Westendorf says yes, and he operates a newspaper aiming to prove it.

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The Saginaw Valley Journal is an independent paper covering Michigan’s Saginaw Valley State University, an 11,000-student public school less than an hour’s drive from Flint.  The paper is a grand experiment of sorts– aiming to kick more than 100 years of college media wisdom smack in its bottom (line).  Westendorf started SVJ on the premise that it can not only earn money, but run long-term in the black.

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A majority of student media operating today make barely any money.  Instead, they are produced, published, and distributed thanks to the financial largesse of their host schools.  A small number of campus outlets make enough through advertising and other support to run independently as non-profits.  For-profit, though, is not a status considered for even a second by most of the student press.

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Westendorf– who started the publication small-time while a student at SVSU (he has yet to earn his degree)– is striving to buck that economic trend.  From an editorial perspective, he also appears to be attempting to embody SVSU’s motto: “Something More.  Something Better.”  In this respect, the key is a focus on substantive news.

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In Westendorf’s words, “This newspaper was established for the SVSU community; for students, faculty, staff, and the administration.  It will be a newspaper’s newspaper, and by that we mean straight, hard news. . . . [W]e want to serve the faculty and staff as much as the students.”

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Even its design– seemingly directly inspired by Wall Street Journal– screams serious.

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The paper's most recent front page.

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I admit, until I see actual revenue reports, a breakdown of how student staffers are compensated, and hear him speak and be vetted at a national or regional ACP/CMA convention, I am skeptical.  But slightly optimistic.  Westendorf is laser-focused on this venture like a tiger who’s spotted raw meat.  On spec, the content produced by him and his student team seems solid.  And Columbia Journalism Review deemed the effort worthy of a recent write-up.

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In the Q&A below, Westendorf discusses the ins-and-outs of the paper’s for-profit, hard news, and independent statuses.

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Michael Westendorf

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These are tough times in the print news world, and advertising revenue alone does not seem to be cutting it.  How do you see SVJ turning a profit and staying afloat in the long term?

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We’re really excited about the opportunities we’re seeing in the college newspaper market.  We believe we’ve found a profitable model for campus newspapers, and much of that comes from observing existing student newspapers and asking ourselves ‘What’s done right?’ and ‘What’s done wrong?’.

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Our business department is in the unique position of being able to completely examine profit models, while ignoring the education aspects that other student newspapers must confront.  An admittedly cursory examination of most student newspapers nationwide would reveal bloated salaries and staff– all in the name of education.  We don’t do that.

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How does the student employment component actually work?

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We don’t differentiate between student-employees and employees.  If we think you’re qualified, we’re going to hire you.  We don’t limit our reporting work to students.  However, as it turns out, the editorial staff is composed of all students.  I’m sure that’s due to a number of factors, most of which is location.  We do not disclose salary/payment information to the general public due to strategic competitive concerns.  We take our competition seriously, and I’m sure they do the same with us.

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You told CJR the paper would focus on more than ”sex columns, Lady Gaga album reviews, and unresearched and disconnected opinion pieces.”  Why is the time for hard news now?

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I don’t think the time for hard news is now (or vice-versa).  It’s just simply what we do.  I don’t think it’s any more relevant today than it was yesterday, or then it will be tomorrow.  In higher education and student newspapers, however, it seems to be sorely lacking.  At our university, at least, we’re seeking to fill that gap.

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Do you worry as an independent, outside entity– and one described in CJR as occasionally combative toward SVSU– that your access might be stymied over time?

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We actually don’t worry about access being stymied as much as we used to worry about it.  We’ve learned how to become diplomatic and to develop relationships with senior administration officials.  We’re also increasingly focused on community engagement.  Those two things (building relationships and community engagement) weren’t focused on as much as they should have been by us early on.  But now that they are, we’re finding that the university is actually starting to embrace us, instead of trying to avoid us.

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Finally, as long as we continue to consistently put out a quality product, I think more and more administrators will start to look at the other newspaper and say to themselves, ‘Gee, this newspaper’s better, and it’s not being infused with $22,000 of student money each semester.  Maybe it’s time we start examining a better use for this money.’

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Campus Newspapers Cover Egypt Student Arrest Drama (Georgetown Hoya, Indiana Daily Student, Drexel Triangle)

Posted in College Media, Journalism, New Media, Student Newspaper on November 26, 2011 | 1 Comment »

As news observers are well aware, the relative calm in Cairo, Egypt, has once again been shattered by protests, spurts of violence, and political unrest.  A side-story within the larger saga: the recent brief detainment of three U.S. students studying for a semester at the American University of Cairo.

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The undergraduate trio– enrolled in the states at Drexel University, Georgetown University, and Indiana University– were arrested by Egyptian authorities for allegedly tossing Molotov cocktails and engaging in other unlawful activities with locals during a Tahrir Square protest.

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Along with professional news outlets worldwide, the campus press from the students’ home schools have stepped up to provide related coverage– during what is a traditionally light week in college media circles (except for the sports staffers).

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The Indiana Daily Student, The Hoya at Georgetown, and The Triangle at Drexel have collectively reported on all stages and numerous angles of the unfolding narrative– the arrests, interrogation by Egyptian officials, reaction of family and friends, the response from various university voices, and the latest update confirming their release.  Special kudos to Hoya staff writers Sarah Kaplan and Upasana Kaku for their especially vigorous reporting efforts.

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One eye-opening snippet in an IDS story about the Indiana University student detained: “On his Twitter account, [the student] often wrote about going to Tahrir Square and participating in protests. On Nov. 13, he tweeted that he had a job in Cairo after graduation and on Nov. 19, he tweeted about throwing rocks, his eyes burning and seeing police fire live ammunition and rubber bullets. On the same day, he also tweeted ‘honestly, hopefully I die here.’  A video was posted on YouTube showing all three of the students on Egyptian state-run television. The video is in Arabic, but it shows the drivers licenses and student IDs of each of the students, a brief clip of them in front of plastic bottles with green fluid in them and a blurry clip of what is suggested to be the students protesting.”

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Student Journalist Spotlight: Brian Dzenis, Editor-in-Chief, The Temple News

Posted in College Media, Journalism, Journalist Spotlight, Story Ideas, Student Newspaper on November 23, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Temple University student Brian Dzenis is a devoted member of what he calls “Team Bacon.”  Along with journalism, Dzenis has publicly declared his enjoyment of three things most in this world: “sports, bacon, and foods that include bacon.”

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The editor-in-chief of The Temple News, the student newspaper at the Philadelphia school, recently tested his bacon adulation and general carnivorousness by agreeing to not eat meat for a full month.

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The challenge was part of “Vices,” a creative series published over the past year within the News “that challenges what we think we need.”  As the paper explains, “For each segment, a different writer will give up something he or she ‘can’t live without.’  We watch them land safely or crash and burn.”

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Past News staff have temporarily sworn off personal obsessions such as coffee (“Coffee controls my life.”); smoking (“I let cigarettes control my life, my happiness, and my sanity.”); their smartphone (“My BlackBerry is my life.”); and World of Warcraft (“To say I like to game is a vast understatement.”).

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Dzenis officially joined the Vices crew this semester.  A spicy beef jerky in late September was his last taste of normal for four weeks.  After removing meat from his diet, he found himself searching for protein from food such as black beans, Greek yogurt, veggie burgers, and peanut butter, to varying success.

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The latter proved the tastiest.  “Jif and I are BFF’s,” he wrote in a reflection piece earlier this month.  “He made the headaches and hunger go away.  He makes fine peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, goes on crackers and goes great with bread and sliced bananas.”

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In the Q&A below, Dzenis fleshes out his meat-free experience– including the side-effects and cravings– and recounts what it was like to rejoin Team Bacon after a month away.

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You seem to love bacon a lot.  How did that start?

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My attraction to bacon and other meat goes back to my childhood.  My mother would cook bacon on Sundays and the smell would wake me up in the morning.  She would also make homemade burgers and steaks as well, so meat has always been more or less a featured part of my diet.  At home, I’ve had days where meat has been part of breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  For example, there would be scrambled eggs with bacon, followed by a burger for lunch, and then chicken and a baked potato for dinner.  I guess when meat has always been regularly available, it makes it hard to give it up.

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What physical, mental or emotional side-effects emerged during your recent meat exile?

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Physically, the only time I really felt bad was during the first week when I started getting headaches from what my staff and I figured (and we’re certainly not doctors or nutritionists) was from the lack of protein.  Once I started eating a lot of food with beans or nuts, I was fine.  I didn’t weigh myself during the process, but I doubt I lost much, if any, weight.  I just noticed I could stay up a lot later at night during my meatless month.

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On the mental or emotional side, I was told I was a little irritable at times from my staff.  As far as what I was thinking, avoiding meat never came naturally and was always a very deliberate decision. Anytime I went anywhere, I always had to do this exercise of crossing off all the things I couldn’t have. It’s not fun having to tell yourself ‘no’ so many times.

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How often did you find yourself longing for meat of some type?

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Every day.  Every single day.  I would get cravings from anything like smelling my roommate cooking burgers for himself to my helpful and supportive staff bringing chicken wings into the office and eating them in front of me.  I usually don’t watch that much TV, but I really made a point to get away from TV.  Those commercials are a tough sit.

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In your related Temple News column, you wrote, “There are no words to describe the experience of eating bacon after a month [of not having it].” A bit more time has passed.  Do any words now come to mind?

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It’s certainly hard to describe it in coherent sentences.  I would use words like strong, relief, filling, and maybe even warmth?  Even eating meat now (this is my first full week back), it doesn’t compare to that first bite after going a month without it.  It just tasted a lot stronger than I remember it, if that makes any sense.

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[In a Temple News video, watch Dzenis bite into meat for the first time in four weeks.  His all-smiles reaction: "Sweet Jesus, that's good."]

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Iowa State Student Newspaper Publishes Special Digital Edition Hours After School’s Historic Football Victory

Posted in College Media, Journalism, New Media, Student Newspaper, Teachable Moment on November 21, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

On Friday night, the eyes and hearts of college football fans nationwide opened to an underdog hero of instantly-mythical proportions: Iowa State University.  Of course, as any living, breathing human who has ever played Madden knows by now, the ISU Cyclones staged a double-overtime, come-from-behind win this past Friday against the then-undefeated, second-ranked Oklahoma State Cowboys.

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To this college sports fan, the historic victory brings to mind images of a narrowly-missed field goal, a batted-intercepted OT pass, a calm-cool-collected redshirt freshman QB, fans storming the field and singing “Sweet Caroline”– and a special digital edition of The Iowa State Daily, ISU’s student newspaper.

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A screenshot of the front page of The Iowa State Daily "football edition."

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As the paper’s editorial adviser’s Mark Witherspoon recounted in a post-game message on a popular college media advisers’ list-serv, roughly 20 staffers gathered to create the seven-page PDF “football edition.”  As he wrote, “The game was over about 11:30, they filled the newsroom by midnight, and worked until at least 5 or 6 a.m. . . . to get the special edition out.  It’s filled with wonderful photos, wonderful stories, an editorial eating crow on the sports guys’ wrong predictions, photo blogs, and digital highlights of the game.

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“They collaborated with both isuTV and the two staff members of The Daily O’Collegian [the student paper at OSU] to get their video, their photos, and a column from the OK State side with its tragedy-filled day [a plane crash killed two OSU women's basketball coaches].  They tweeted and Facebooked to get reactions from fans and former ISU athletes and suggestions for headlines and stories.”

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According to a related post by Charles Apple at ACES, the key design element was freedom: “Because there was no press configuration to worry about, the ISD folks could break all sorts of rules.  Who cares about color positions if you’re not actually printing copies?  Who cares if you insert doubletrucks into places where they physically wouldn’t fit?”

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ISD editor-in-chief Jake Lovett told Apple the first three pages of the paper were purposefully printed sideways, and will be available as keepsake posters for fans who want to frame and hang their memories.

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A screenshot of page 4 of The Iowa State Daily "football edition."

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Overall, as Witherspoon rightfully summarized the issue: “It’s a marvelous example of doing journalism in the digital age.”

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Editor & Publisher Piece: Kentucky’s Need to Control Basketball Program Led to Student Newspaper Censorship

Posted in College Media, Free Press Fights, Journalism, Student Newspaper on November 20, 2011 | 1 Comment »

An “Ethics Corner” column in the latest issue of Editor & Publisher is offering one last journalistic smackdown of the deplorable student press censorship earlier this semester at the University of Kentucky.

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For the uninitiated, here are the facts…  The timing: late August.  The location: Lexington, Ky.  The situation: University of Kentucky athletics officials, angry over a story published in The Kentucky Kernel, barred the campus newspaper from a day of one-on-one interviews with the school’s basketball team.  According to a Lexington Herald-Leader report, the Kernel had violated an unofficial UK rule limiting journalists from speaking to student athletes without the coordination of university media relations.

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The UK media team says the rule is in place to ensure athletes are not “bombarded with interview requests constantly.”  Hmm.  Or maybe instead, as Rutgers University journalism professor Allan Wolper writes in E&P, the rule is an offshoot of the school’s almost-Orwellian need to control EVERYTHING about its basketball program.

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As he writes, “[R]eporters from media organizations– be they students or professionals– are in constant danger of having their access to players and athletic officials cut off if they publish something the athletic department disagrees with or finds offensive.  It’s an institution of higher learning where athletic university staffers station themselves next to journalists interviewing basketball players to make sure the hoopsters don’t commit a thought crime. It’s an academic outpost where Thalethia Routt, an associate legal counsel to the university, criticized [the Kernel student reporter at the heart of this controversy] in an online post for being a ‘pretend journalist,’ because he dared to telephone two players.”

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Wolper’s words build off the news media and public criticism aimed at UK Athletics that poured out in the immediate aftermath of the controversy.

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The part of Wolper’s wonderful write-up that most shocked and saddened me: Apparently, UK journalism professors did not stand by the paper’s side and publicly express “real flashes of outrage” about the incident.  For the sake of the school’s j-program, I hope Wolper’s assessment is somehow mistaken.  Censorship is not something journalism educators should stay quiet about.

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College Media Story Ideas: The Freshman 15 Myth

Posted in College Media, Journalism, Story Ideas, Student Newspaper on November 18, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

The Freshman 15 is actually the Freshman 3.  According to a new report appearing soon in Social Science Quarterly, first-year students at colleges and universities only gain a bit more than three pounds during their first two semesters in school.

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The “myth-debunking” finding stems from a long-term study that followed the weight fluctuations of more than 7,000 teens and early twenysomethings.  It is the first major blowback against the Freshman 15 phenomenon since its introduction into the media and public lexicon more than 20 years ago.

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According to The Los Angeles Times, “The first mention of ‘Freshman 15’ came . . . in 1989 inSeventeen magazine.  By the late 1990s, use of the ‘Freshman 15′ term in articles had risen significantly and (shockingly!) about half . . . did not refute or question the reality of ‘Freshman 15.’”

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Campus newspapers regularly run articles obsessing about how students can avoid the dramatic weight gain.  As an opinion piece published last month in The Index at Michigan’s Kalamazoo College shares, “Education typically isn’t the only thing you gain in college.  Looked in the mirror lately?  Many college kids have a case of the Freshman 15.  And many students don’t even realize it until their pants are too tight.”

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Less than a month before the Index op-ed, a write-up in The Quad at Pennsylvania’s West Chester University laid out the many temptations apparently making the Freshman 15 unavoidable.  “Even before that deliciously greasy pizza from [a local pizzeria], there were the fresh, hot fries from Chick-fil-A,” it begins.  “There was that blueberry muffin with a latte from Starbucks before an 8 a.m. class in Main Hall.  There was the free-for-all in [another campus building] because they were serving both chocolate chip cookies and tacos on the same night.  Is it any wonder why those favorite jeans don’t fit?  With so many unhealthy choices of food on campus, is there really anything one can do to avoid gaining the freshman 15?”

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According to the study, the main thing students and educators can do is stop worrying so much about it.  As its co-author states, “There are a lot of things to worry about when you go to college.  However, gaining 15 pounds your freshman year is not one of them.”

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To read more, click here or on the image below.

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Penn State Sex Abuse Scandal: 10 Spin-Off Story Ideas for Your Student Newspaper

Posted in College Media, Journalism on November 16, 2011 | 1 Comment »

The Daily Collegian and Onward State at Penn State continue to cover and provide commentary on almost every angle of the sex abuse scandal and its related football fallout and administrative shake-up.

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Their hard-nosed, on-point, wide-ranging editorial slates should serve as inspirations– and foundations for related story ideas for your own student news outlet.  Below is a list of 10 potentially fruitful spin-off features.

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1) Transfer of Morals.  In the headline, a current Onward State story describes itself as a “Plea to All Penn Staters.”  It is begging students, in the scandal’s wake, “Please Don’t Transfer.”  In a related sense, the most viral tweet after the scandal broke was from a prized PSU football recruit hinting he may change his mind about becoming a Nittany Lion.  The tweet: “Um psu might be a no no for me ewwww.”  Are there any moral equivalents among students or athletic recruits at your school, related to past campus incidents or current controversies?  Are pockets of current or prospective students fed up about an issue of moral relevance, instead of tuition hikes, cafeteria food, class quality, and dorm trouble?  And how much does a school’s “moral reputation” (maybe related to its party culture, religious affiliation or political leanings) impact student enrollment decisions?

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2) Campus Crime Reporting.  A Chronicle of Higher Education report recently noted, “In the wake of the scandal over child sex-abuse allegations at Pennsylvania State University, colleges across the country are reviewing their policies regarding what their employees are required to do when they witness or receive information about suspected abuse of children.”  What are your school’s regulations for reporting crime or other suspicious activity in general, whether it involves children or not?  What are the rules for RAs and other student leaders specifically?  And how have people actually responded to criminal behavior they have come across in the past?  In a related sense, are your campus emergency phones ever used for reporting actual crimes or other emergencies?  And how far are campus security officers allowed to go in investigating and apprehending criminal suspects?

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3) Retired Staff Access.  One eye-catching detail reported amid the scandal’s initial hysteria was the fact that alleged abuser and former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky had “remained a presence around Penn State.“  He had even been spotted in a PSU weight room only a week before charges against him were filed.  He has not officially worked at the university since 1999.  The related questions for a report at your school: What access are retired officials and professors emiriti granted on campus?  How often do they take part in meetings, trips, and other official school business?  And are any still on the school payroll?

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4) Criminal History.  Until recently of course, Sandusky had allegedly engaged in despicable activity for years without prosecution and criminal punishment.  But what about those who have been caught and convicted of wrongdoing in the past and are now applying to attend or work at your school?  Specifically, what is involved in the vetting process for new faculty and staff hires?  And what are the guidelines for determining admittance for student applicants with a criminal history?

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5) Crisis Action Plan.  Penn State was roundly, and rightfully, criticized in the scandal’s immediate aftermath for a bumbling PR response.  Is there a crisis communication plan or ready-to-roll crisis task-force in place at your school?  Five years ago, the idea might have seemed ludicrous.  Then, sadly, the Virginia Tech shootings occurred– prompting discussions about related plans at colleges and universities nationwide.  What scenarios have officials at your school drawn up responses for, and which ones will administrators admit the school is not equipped to handle if they happened today?

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6) Child Sexual Assault Survivors, Grown Up.  Amid the current media madness, Sandusky’s alleged child victims far too often have been overshadowed by all-things Paterno and other angles of the story.  One can only imagine the emotional and mental struggles they have endured.  In a new ESPN column, legendary sportswriter Rick Reilly shares, “For the last seven days, my inbox has been full of horror and hope– personal stories of childhood sexual abuse.”

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Adults or those close to it who have survived such abuse and want to inform and educate others are perhaps braver than we will ever know.  Are there any student or staff survivors at your school willing to talk about their experiences and subsequent life impact?  As Reilly notes, part of their motivation is letting fellow survivors know: “Help is out there.”  In addition, it is a measure of personal healing.  As a survivor tells the Daily Collegian, “If you spend all this time and energy trying to keep a secret in place, at some time you are going to take measures to shut your brain off or quiet your brain.  You don’t live a full life.”

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7) Emergency Response.  When the trustees fired Paterno, PSU students rioted.  For one evening, chaos reigned in State College, Pa.  How were non-rioting students notified of the potential dangers of heading outside?  What is the response system in place at your school to inform everyone of manmade or natural disasters?  Who makes the call on when to inform the campus community about a potential threat?  And what is the ratio of alert messages to actual emergencies?

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8) In the Board We Trust.  The Board of Trustees at Penn State has surged into national prominence within the last week and a half, acting as the main body involved in the firing of individuals like the PSU president and Paterno and determining the future direction of the school.  Their fellow trustees nationwide often have a monumental impact on schools’ big pictures and budget planning.  Yet, trustees tend to remain out of the spotlight of student and local media.  Questions we all should be asking at present: Who serves on your school’s trustees board?  How are they selected?  And what is their meeting and decision-making process?

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9) Brand Management.  A number of high-profile companies that advertise with or sponsor Penn State in some way are disassociating themselves from what is now a tarnished Happy Valley brand.  For example, as a Wall Street Journal story confirmed, “About a half-dozen advertisers have pulled commercials from ESPN’s broadcasts of coming Pennsylvania State University football games.”  An Onward State story notes that students are even concerned their own professional futures might be stymied because businesses may be nervous about hiring someone with a PSU degree.

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Related questions for a spin-off report: What companies are aligned with your school, and in what ways?  What demands do the companies make in exchange for an advertising or sponsorship arrangement?  And what are the responsibilities of the staff at your school who are charged with overall brand management or management of the brand in a specific arena like social media?  In a related sense, has your school ever disassociated itself from a company or individual for ethical or moral reasons, such as removing a name from a dorm, dropping a sponsor from a campus event or returning a check from a high-level donor?  And talk to corporate recruiters: What is your school’s reputation among those looking to hire?

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10) Presidential Roles.  Along with being ousted as PSU president, Graham Spanier has resigned or been booted from various other organizations on which he had held directorships or similar leadership positions– most prominently U.S. Steel and college football’s Bowl Championship Series.  What outside boards and committees do the president and other high-ranking administrators at your school serve on?  Who approves the affiliations?  And how are conflicts of interest handled?

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SPLC, CBI to Supreme Court: End FCC’s Power to Fine College Radio for Cursing

Posted in Broadcast Journalism, College Media, Free Press Fights, Journalism on November 15, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

The Supreme Court should strike down a governmental policy allowing college radio stations to be fined for “fleeting expletives,” the Student Press Law Center and College Broadcasters, Inc., argue in a new friend-of-the-court brief.

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SPLC and CBI joined forces for the brief in defense of college radio’s role as an often-live “laboratory for experimentation,” where, gasp, sometimes stray curse words are spoken.

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The organizations’ problem: For the past decade, the Federal Communication Commission has operated as a “wide-ranging, randomly enforced indecency regime” waging a “crackdown on swear-words in over-the-air broadcasting.”  The resulting fines can reach a half million dollars, threatening student stations’ very existence simply due to a single broadcast’s “blurted curse-words.”

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A portion of the brief: “The Commission’s current approach chills college broadcasters into self-censoring their speech so as to leave a broad buffer before reaching the indistinct boundary where indecency may (or may not) lie. This is the hallmark of an unconstitutionally vague regulatory regime.”

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SPLC executive director Frank LoMonte: “[T]he risk of a five-figure or six-figure fine that could put a station out of business really discourages students from airing the very type of broadcasts that their audiences most want and that offer the most diversity in programming.”

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The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the related case, FCC v. Fox TV, in January.

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Student Newspaper Theft at Texas A&M-Kingsville Linked to Story on Football Players’ Arrest

Posted in Collegemediatopia, Journalism, Student Newspaper, Student Newspaper Theft on November 14, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Hundreds of copies of a student newspaper were allegedly swiped and trashed last week at Texas A&M at Kingsville, an act linked to a front-page story about the arrest of two football players and an assistant coach.  It is the second football-related student newspaper theft at a school within the Texas A&M system in under two years.

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Roughly 400 copies of The South Texan, the student newspaper at Kingsville, disappeared from their residence hall stands early last week.  Editors later found almost half of them in the trash.  A Student Press Law Center report confirms the total printing and distribution loss comes to more than $800.

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The probable cause for the theft: an article confirming a Kingsville wide receiver, running back, and a defensive backs coach had been pinched by police for marijuana possession.  (The coach also faces a child endangerment charge.)

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Sadly, there is precedent for this within the Texas A&M cosmos.  In late February 2010, football players at Texas A&M at Commerce collaborated on a mass theft of almost 2,000 copies of The East Texan, the school’s student newspaper.  The squad was responding to a front-page story headlined, “Football Player Arrested in Drug Bust.”  At the time, the team’s coach famously noted, “I’m proud of my players for doing that.  This was the best team building exercise we have ever done.”

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My Advice for Poynter: 10 Steps to Succeed with a Post-Romenesko Media Blog

Posted in Journalism, Journalism Ethics, New Media on November 13, 2011 | 1 Comment »

As I write in my new PBS MediaShift post, the Romenesko-Poynter split remains the talk of the journalism cosmos.  I am a longtime Romenesko reader now strongly considering switching full-time to Mediagazer.  Simply in case it might be of interest to a Poynter faculty crew I sincerely admire, here are the steps I suggest taking to succeed with a post-Romenesko media blog– specifically to keep readers like me who love journalism and enjoy a daily “insiderish media” fix.

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Step 1) Write a well-deserved tribute for the man who put you on the online map.  The relationship didn’t end well, but you had a great run together and he deserves a proper goodbye and an honest assessment of everything he did for Poynter’s reputation.

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Step 2) Julie Moos needs to publicly respond to the whole shebang.  She is noticeably missing from the interesting responses provided by other Poynter-ites on Friday.  Transparency and trust seem to be two of the institute’s principal tenets.  A statement from her that reads as human instead of canned will go a long way toward getting Poynter past this situation.

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Step 3) Avoid a cheesy, overly-PC name for the new blog.  The best blog titles have a little bit of edge to them.  You need a new brand that will roll off people’s lips and enter their heads when they’re browsing.

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Step 4) DON’T replace Romenesko with one person right away.  Stick with a quiet mix of people until a workhorse emerges or a qualified fresh face catches your attention from the outside.  Consider poaching someone with an indy blog!  If I was hiring a blogger in 2011, I would not give a second look to anyone who hasn’t been blogging reliably and excitingly for at least a year.

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Step 5) SHORTEN THE POSTS.  The recent switch to the long-ish post format has been like a slow exhale.  The best part of old-format Romenesko: You didn’t read it. You scrolled and scanned it, constantly, scrolling and scanning.

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Step 6) MAKE THE EXTERNAL LINKS MUCH CLEARER.  This is something Erika Fry rightly noted in her now-historic CJR write-up.  It’s been annoying me for months.  Don’t let web traffic drive your thinking.  The many, many, many loyal Romenesko readers greatly enjoyed clicking on a story he teased, then coming back, clicking on another site, and once again returning.  Nowadays, it feels like a con-game, involving multiple clicks to read a single teaser and a narrow-eyed search to find the correct external link.  Fix this NOW.

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Step 7) Begin updating on evenings and weekends.  You have a team, it seems.  No reason someone can’t take a night shift or post occasionally on weekends.  You are going to have to work harder to maintain readers.  Fresh content at all hours would be a good start.

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Step 8) Add back your mega-huge bloggers list.  It was part of the old site.  I always enjoyed it.  Bloggers will appreciate the inclusion.  In a related sense, open up the cited sources list.  Independent bloggers and informal media outlets do provide major scoops and insightful analysis.  The blog could use a fresh set of voices to complement the set of industry pubs and people that have held steady now for years.

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Step 9) Lay off the gotcha journalism for awhile.  The posts attacking those in the industry for strange work practices are typically fantastic, but they will send the wrong message right now and likely appear tone-deaf considering Poynter itself seems to have screwed up so massively.  (I’m not talking about the regular posts pointing out grievous errors.  I’m talking about the small-time quirky stuff that leads Romenesko to email someone for a response.  It’ll seem petty at the moment.)

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Step 10) Interact with Romenesko in the future.  In six months or a year or even when Romenesko launches his new site, have Mallary Jean Tenore or another of your stronger writers do a piece on him or conduct a Q&A.  He seems like a reasonable guy who will probably be up for it.  And it will help heal this whole fissure– literally and in the eyes of readers– and enable everyone to move on.

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Best of luck.

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A Strange, Sad Day in Journalism: Romenesko’s Resignation

Posted in Journalism, Journalism Ethics, New Media on November 11, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Aggregation is an under-appreciated art.  Sure, with a quick tutorial, almost anyone can perform some version of it.  But I have only stumbled across a few individuals and media outlets who have done it really well for any length of time on the web.

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Jim Romenesko heavily influenced the practice of online aggregation.  By many accounts, he was one of its inventors and early experimenters.  For more than a decade on his eponymous blog, he aggregated news about the news industry with an astounding rapidity and regularity that made his updates as reliable as the rising of the sun (except, of course, on Saturdays and Sundays). :)

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Romenesko spread the word about the big stories quick.  He ferreted out the smaller stories deserving a spotlight.  He maintained a professional, almost invisible, voice, displaying smidgens of snark or righteousness only when he was calling out individuals or organizations who deserved it.  Until recently, when the blog format switched, he gave media-watchers just enough to whet our appetites about an item without drowning us in minutia or holding us up from scrolling down.  And he brought public attention to internal industry decisions and disputes with such frequency that those in power long ago came to accept and expect it.

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St. Petersburg Times media critic Eric Deggans confirms, “Romenesko’s site has been a favorite of reporters, editors, administrators and all sorts of folks connected to the media industry, especially in print. For about a dozen years, he’s gathered together the most important news from all corners of the biz to one spot, creating an amazing platform for ideas and gossip that I have benefited from many times over.”

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A few hours ago, a New York Times Media Decoder post accurately noted that for many of us a spot on his blog was seen as a short-term land-grab of “the best real estate in American journalism.”  I vividly recall the two times I was mentioned by name in separate summaries.  It triggered a torrent of sheer joy that I would describe as Romenesko+.

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And yet, now, here we are, minus Romenesko, at least in the role in which we most love and rely on him.  The eye-poppingly stunning manner in which his association at Poynter was severed yesterday is the talk of the journalism cosmos.  His own minders publicly flogged him in a post on his own blog for a practice that some are declaring questionable and others are defending with gusto.

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I will leave it to the news media ethics cognoscenti to determine if there has truly been any actual fault in how Romenesko handled portions of the news copy to which he was linking.  I am currently too dazed by this whole “bizarre spat” (as Media Decoder calls it) to really dive in.

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As a Pennsylvania native, it has been a weird few days, watching Joe Paterno, a man larger than the institution at which he was employed, be forced out.  The departure has left a strange new reality forced to soldier on in its wake.  As one Penn State University superfan messaged me, “Will Saturdays ever be the same?”

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The context surrounding that case and this one are of course monumentally different.  But the similarities in respect to how they have played out are impossible to ignore. Jim Romenesko, a man larger than the institution at which he was employed, has been prominently, suddenly and unceremoniously forced out, leading to raucous showings of support from his fans and a black cloud hanging over Poynter’s future.  Will every day but Saturday and Sunday ever be the same?

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Median Salary for Journalism Majors: $50,000

Posted in Future of Journalism, Journalism, Journalism Education on November 9, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Based on last year’s census data, the median salary for journalism majors now in the professional ranks: $50,000.  My first reaction: Wow, honestly, that is higher than I thought it would be.

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According to a great Romenesko+ post summarizing Wall Street Journal data, “Journalism majors do slightly better than English majors in the job market. . . . The median annual salary for both is $50,000, the same as it is for advertising and PR majors, history majors and communications majors.”

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My second reaction: How many are actually working as journalists?  The WSJ breakdown does not provide an answer to that query.  But it does present an interesting nugget that should be at least slightly heartening to j-students, profs, alumni, and advisers everywhere: “[J]ournalists make up a slightly larger portion of the U.S. workforce than in 2000.  At that time, .055 percent of the U.S. workforce was made up of journalists; in 2010, journalists were .058 percent of the workforce.”

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Of course, this produces more questions than answers.  Chief among them: Who is being counted as a journalist?  (I imagine the definition has changed since a decade ago.)  And how many people are in the workforce overall compared to 10 years ago?  (I’m guessing there are a ton less jobs than in 2000, meaning there are probably less working journalists as well.)

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Yet, regardless, it’s nice to see j-majors are financially competitive after graduation and that I can look students in the eye when I tell them journalism’s foothold in society is holding steady– at least in a baseline numerical sense.  Journalism within higher ed. also remains strong– listed as the 25th most popular major among the 173 included in the WSJ report.

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The bad news: The unemployment rate for journalism majors after graduation is slightly higher than those who major in one of its rival disciplines.  And diversity in the journalism workforce is embarrassingly low– especially in respect to women and those in the racial minority.

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What do you think of this data???

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Penn State Daily Collegian Covering Widening Sex Abuse Scandal Nonstop

Posted in College Media, Journalism, New Media, Student Newspaper on November 8, 2011 | 4 Comments »

Update, Wednesday night: Daily Collegian news adviser Jim Rodenbush just wrote me, “The Collegian, which has been a five-day-a-week paper since going ‘daily’ in the 1940s, will publish its first-ever Sunday edition this weekend in response to Joe Paterno’s final home game Saturday and the ongoing scandal/story.”

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As Penn State University’s paper of record, The Daily Collegian has been providing nonstop coverage of the sex abuse scandal and now-deafening furor surrounding it.

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As a Philadelphia Inquirer report noted today, “At the offices of the independent student newspaper, the Collegian, boxes of cold pizza piled up as the staff worked every angle of the story.  Editors conferred about coverage– a Paterno news conference Tuesday, the arraignments, and details about wide receivers coach Mike McQueary, who reported one of the alleged assaults when he was a graduate assistant.  Across the room, a reporter struggled with a piece about the removal of Sandusky Blitz ice cream from the menu at the college’s beloved Berkey Creamery.”

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Staffers have also put together a timeline of key events in what they are calling the “Sandusky Scandal.”  A separate report grabs longtime fans’ reactions.  And the opinion section in today’s issue has a related column and letters to the editor discussing the depravity of the alleged acts, the apparent cover-up, the impact on PSU’s legacy, and the media’s coverage of everything so far.

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In a piece headlined, “Scandal Tarnishes PSU’s Brand,” the Collegian‘s Emily Kaplan, a Penn State junior, writes, “In a couple years we’ll be alumni, driving back to State College for football Saturdays.  Before kickoff, we’ll stand with the other 100,000-plus Nittany Lion faithful at Beaver Stadium and sing our alma mater. We’ll recite the lyrics, which are about respect, integrity and success with honor– the foundations Penn State prides itself on.  But I can’t help but wonder what those words will mean in two years, or beyond.”

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The current editorial cartoon is especially powerful– showing a Nittany Lion in tears, a report about Sandusky in his hands and related coverage splashed on the TV behind him.  It is a pitch-perfect illustration of what the outside media have dubbed Unhappy Valley.

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Meanwhile, the paper’s Twitter account has been active with updates, including most recently reports and video of a supportive student gathering outside head football coach Joe Paterno’s house.

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