College Media Matters

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“If a venture capitalist gave you $750,000 to start a media company on this campus, what would you build?”

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In April 2011, not long after he began his tenure as publisher of The Daily Emerald at the University of Oregon– since rebranded the Emerald Media Group– Ryan Frank posed this purposefully provocative question to the student staff.

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In part, Frank’s aim with the $750,000 question was to inspire students to begin redefining how they plan, produce, and present journalism and to reinvent what it means to be a college media outlet.

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As Frank told me a few weeks ago, “That was the first push we had to say, ‘Forget what we’ve done for 112 years.  Pretend you’re starting from scratch. You’ve got VC money.  You’re running a startup.  What would you build?’”

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Over the next 13 months, the early ideas stemming from that question– and many free-flowing newsroom conversations that followed– dramatically evolved.  Their endpoint was a fully-realized, uber-researched, focus-group-tested, board-approved plan for an Emerald unlike any that had come before.  Exactly one year ago today– May 23, 2012– the staff went public with their reinvention MO and what they dubbed “the start of a new era, the digital one.”  Their one-word summation of the initiative: Revolution.

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At present, 365 days after its premiere, I can excitedly confirm: the Revolution has been a rousing success.  Over the past academic year, the Emerald’s innovative efforts have been immense, frequent, and fearless.  The staff’s spirit of collaboration, lean startup style moxie, and idea development have been NONSTOP and so audacious the news, marketing, and tech teams deserve a Pulitzer for Whiteboard Brainstorming. And their push to greatly expand the breadth and depth of what it means to be a student journalist and student newspaper is so awe-inspiring it makes me smile just thinking about it.

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At this moment, within the land of collegemediatopia, there is nothing quite like the Emerald.  In the press landscape today, I can think of no greater compliment.

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In fact, the Emerald is so cutting edge it makes this (admittedly informal) award outdated.  I am honoring what I consider to be the best college newspaper of the past academic year.  But the post-revolution Emerald is no longer just a newspaper. It hasn’t been since 11:59 p.m. PST, May 22, 2012.  At midnight on the day that followed, it morphed into a full-blown, much more wide-ranging media company with a gigantic, noble mission: “to make college better.”

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On a special site erected to honor the Revolution’s one-year anniversary, staff describe 5.23.2012 as simply “the day everything changed.”

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Sharing that sentiment, I do believe the Emerald is changing college media greatly, for the better– setting a foundation for how to more richly report and share news; how to unleash digital journalism’s potential; how to generate revenue; how to structure staff; how to mesh marketing, advertising, events planning, tech tinkering, and pure journalism; how to merge professional and student staff; and how to remind readers of student journalism’s sexiness and significance.

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During an exclusive chat with me last night, incoming and outgoing Emerald editors-in-chief Andy Rossback and Sam Stites shared their perspectives on the Emerald’s accomplishments over the past year, laid out some plans for next year, and offered advice for student news teams looking to follow in their innovative stead. [Click on the play button in the audio track below to listen to the interview in full.]

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Interview: Emerald editors Andy Rossback & Sam Stites

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At the end of the chat, Rossback summed up the Emerald staff’s stellar work ethic– and its link to the place they call home.  In his words:

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All of us here really identify as Oregonians.  We identify with the pioneer spirit . . . the Oregon Trail and coming out West, searching for the edge of the world.  That’s really what we’re trying to do in our own way.  It’s kind of like Oregon’s football team.  It’s a flash of innovation and speed. And it’s everything about being an Oregonian or a Pacific Northwesterner. We love trying really hard and working really hard to come up with the best thing that we can.  We like to impress ourselves every day.  We try to impress each other.  And [the element of] surprise is, I think, probably my favorite part of working at the Emerald– walking into a room and people are talking about something that is totally next level.  I love working in an environment like that.  I think it’s probably a similar feeling to how [world-famous distance runner] Steve Prefontaine felt running around the track at Oregon or around Eugene or around Coos Bay.  His quote, I’ll read it for you here in close.  It says, “How does a kid from Coos Bay with one leg longer than the other win races? All my life people have been telling me, ‘You’re too small, Pre.’  You’re not fast enough, Pre.  Give up your foolish dream, Steve.’  But they forgot something.  I HAVE TO WIN.”  That’s hanging right above my computer screen.  Right next to a picture of Steve Jobs that says, “I want to put a ding in the universe.”

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Related

College Newspaper of the Year, 2011-2012: The Daily Collegian, Penn State University

Oregon Daily Emerald ‘Reinvented for the Digital Age’: Announces Revolutionary Changes

5 Early Lessons from the Oregon Daily Emerald’s Digital Reinvention

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As the most recent natural disaster in Moore, Oklah., shows, coverage of weather events is an increasingly vital skill for journalists worldwide– including, of course, in the state of Oklahoma.

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According to Judy Gibbs Robinson, the veteran editorial adviser to The Oklahoma Daily and OUDaily.com at the University of Oklahoma, ”[Monday's] F4 tornado just to the north of our campus occurred during one-day training for the small summer staff [of The Oklahoma Daily, which is a weekly during summer break].  Needless to say, we were not prepared.  As the afternoon and evening unrolled, I discovered how little this current group of young students knows about covering weather (in Oklahoma!).  So I created a handout for them titled ‘How to Cover Weather Stories.’”

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Among the tools and tips Robinson shares on the handout, some of which she learned from the 2013 SPJ Region 8 conference:

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1. Get news releases from the National Weather Service.

Go to the National Weather Service website at http://www.srh.noaa.gov.  [Next, click on the relevant spot on the map for local weather information.]  Click on “news” in the top navigation bar.  And scroll to “media registration” to register to receive news releases.

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2. Follow InteractiveNWS.

iNWS is the new, and experimental, mobile and desktop application from the National Weather Service.  Use it to receive customized text message and email alerts for weather info you care about.  Go to http://inws.wrh.noaa.gov

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3. Social Media.

Follow the (fill in your city here) NWS office on Facebook and Twitter for real-time weather reports.  Links are on the website:  http://www.srh.noaa.gov.

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4. NWS Chat.

Go to https://nwschat.weather.gov to register to participate in an instant, real-time chat between the media and the emergency response community.

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5. NWS Chat Live.

Here is an enhanced version of NWS chat– not sure how they are different though: https://nwschat.weather.gov/live/

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**Bonus Tip: Find Out About the Kids.

Candace Baltz, general manager of student publications at Washington State University, has one more essential weather coverage tip.  In her words, “As someone who found herself covering tornadoes live on-air last spring for several hours at a time– and with no personal tornado experience to pull from– I found the info our listeners were most interested in was not just where the storm is and where it’s heading, but their kids– what to do about the kids.  So I’d highly suggest including the school district spokesperson contact info, as well as the police and city, so you can report that the kids are on lockdown or dismissing early, etc.  That may not be as interesting for a college publication, but it’s still good info to get.”

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As the academic year at last draws to a close and the Class of 2013 leaves campus for good, advice is everywhere– in commencement speeches, parent chats, and student newspaper columns.

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Along with adults who supposedly know better, current upperclassmen and graduating seniors are offering endless words of wisdom to their student peers on making the most of the college experience and the post-grad transition.

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Some of the advice published in student papers lately opines on big picture issues. Other tips touch on the small stuff. In respect to the latter, as The Badger Herald at the University of Wisconsin-Madison recently suggested, “Always carry cash. . . . Never let anyone drive your car. . . . [And] only date excellence.”

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In this second part of a two-part feature, here is a sampling of the excellent advice– big and small– students have shared publicly in recent weeks.

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Figure Out What’s Right, Not What’s Right Now.  As Meg O’Connor, a student at the University of Minnesota, writes in The Minnesota Daily, “Graduation provides a time for people to reflect on what exactly it is they want to do. Don’t jump into something because it is what your parents want for you or because you feel that it is the ‘right thing to do.’ Do what feels right for you. We have the rest of our lives to be working professionals, so taking a couple years off or even just a summer away to give you a break sounds like a mighty fine idea to me. . . . It’s more important to figure out what is right rather than what is right now.”

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Know A Little About A Lot.  As Amanda Butcher, a student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, confirms in The Torch, “Your college major might not matter so much to employers. In fact, four of five employers said that graduates should have a general arts and sciences knowledge, rather than something ultra-specific. . . . If you know a little about a lot of things, you can always be taught specifics. . . . Hardly anyone ends up in the job they started out in. As people advance in their career, they need to have more knowledge than they started out with. Having a broad spectrum of knowledge would make employers think they can let you move higher on the totem pole of the company.”

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Voice Your Opinions, on All Available Platforms.  As Zack Scott, a student at Temple University, contends in The Temple News, “Writing opinions in the more traditional sense will always have its benefits and will never truly go away. . . . But there is absolutely no excuse for anyone to be avoiding letting their opinions be heard when the threshold for publication has never been so low. Whether through social media, blogs or even comment threads, you can publish your thoughts and people will actually read and be influenced by them. By any standard, that is incredible. And to not take advantage of it would be nothing short of irresponsible.”

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Recognize What You’ve Already Accomplished.  As Dennis Biles, a graduating senior at San Jose State University, writes in The Spartan Daily, “For those of you who are about to graduate and feel nervous about the next step, stop quivering in your boots of foreboding and realize you’re more prepared than you may think. Just getting through college, especially in today’s America, is a significant achievement in itself. . . . Going to college now is harder than at any time in the past. It’s more expensive and more challenging than anything your predecessors dealt with before … Take it from me, if you’re able to survive college you’re well prepared to survive the real world.”

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Admit Your Own Stupidity.  As A.J. Artis, a graduating senior at Emory University, notes in his final humor column for The Emory Wheel, “You can’t make fun of people for being stupid unless you admit that you are also stupid. No one has anything all figured out. And to mock someone for not having things figured out, without acknowledging your own lack of direction, is not funny. The best stories are the ones that secretly say, ‘I’m pathetic.’ If you want to be funny, hide your feelings or make fun of them. And of course, write on the toilet.”

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As the academic year at last draws to a close and the Class of 2013 leaves campus for good, advice is everywhere– in commencement speeches, parent chats, and student newspaper columns.

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Along with adults who supposedly know better, current upperclassmen and graduating seniors are offering endless words of wisdom to their student peers on making the most of the college experience and the post-grad transition.

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Some of the advice published in student papers lately opines on big picture issues. Other tips touch on the small stuff. In respect to the latter, as The Badger Herald at the University of Wisconsin-Madison recently suggested, “Always carry cash. . . . Never let anyone drive your car. . . . [And] only date excellence.”

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In this first part of a two-part feature, here is a sampling of the excellent advice– big and small– students have shared publicly in recent weeks.

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Take Responsibility, Along with Naps.  As Caroline Kelly, a graduating senior at James Madison University, writes in The Breeze, “Everything is your own responsibility now. You have total freedom over your schedule. I’ve had some friends come out of high school and gleefully frolic through this new world of naps whenever you want and no parents, and then flounder when they found themselves waist-deep in work due tomorrow. You can do whatever you want, but you also have to do things you don’t want. Absolutely no one is going to make you write your essays, go to class or eat your veggies but you. Teachers aren’t interested in hearing how you felt really bad, that your stomach hurt and that’s why your big essay is late. Everything you do is on you.”

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Talk to Professors After Class.  As Yishai Schwartz, a graduating senior at Yale University, advises in The Yale Daily News, “Linger in the hallways.  The best of what I learned from my professors didn’t come in the lecture hall or the seminar room, or even in office hours. It came in the half-hour after class when most students had dispersed, but a few of us lingered in the hallway. . . . There’s no hand-raising or phony pontification in the hallway. Professors let their hair down and engage, and you learn what they really believe, enjoying the freedom to press and push. And when they make little sense, you can interrupt and question and argue, free of the fear that you’ll look stupid in front of your classmates.”

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Enjoy Summer.  As Anthony Bellafiore, a junior at Penn State University, writes in The Daily Collegian, “[F]or those of you who adhere to the non-senior category, please don’t pretend to be so happy when we all return in September.  Because yes, college is great and all but summer is about as close to perfect as we are ever going to get. . . . So get excited. Get out there and enjoy it.  Make sure you take full advantage. Unlike the parties, the bars, the football and the work– if that’s your sort of thing– it won’t be around forever.”

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Say Thank You.  As Lexi Thoman, a graduating senior at the University of Mississippi, confirms in The Daily Mississippian, ”As students, we are in control of our own futures.  But without the mentorship and guidance of our professors and advisers, most of us would not be as successful as we are today. Sometimes the smallest comment or slightest nudge in the right direction is all it takes to make a huge difference. . . . [N]ever forget to say, ‘Thank you.’  A quick email or stop in their office is all it takes to leave a lasting impression and set you apart from the thousands of other graduates in the Class of 2013. Humility may be a fading art in our generation, but no one should be above giving thanks to those who deserve it.”

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Get Off Campus.  As Alexis Paine, a graduating senior at the University of Alabama, notes in The Crimson White, “[G]o out and get involved. You’ll regret sitting at home when all of your friends are reminiscing about all the fun they had meeting new people and experiencing new things. Do what you can to bolster your résumé now. Get some real world experience and find out what your passion is.”

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To Be Continued…

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An unemployed Spaniard twentysomething with a journalism degree and no job has gone viral for singing– yes, singing– about his credentials on the subway.

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As The Huffington Post shares, “While a friend filmed, Enzo Vizcaino strummed on a ukulele and serenaded straphangers on the Barcelona Metro. . . . Fortunately, after the video was posted on YouTube and shared widely on social media, the job offers flooded in.”

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Check out the video of his performance.  His song is in Spanish, so I’ve included a translation of most of the lyrics below.

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Among the lyrics:

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Degree in journalism
and a master’s diploma
that is folded right here,
in case you’d like to see it.

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Complementary training:
An online course I found on Groupalia
about community management.
I’m an expert on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest,
Linkedin and MySpace.

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Professional experience,
at a local radio station,
with a fellowship contract,
that was unpaid, of course. . . .

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I’m the King of Word,
Excel, and Powerpoint.
I control Photoshop.

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Don’t reach for your wallet,
I’m not here to ask for money.
Though maybe you have a friend or relative. . . .
Need a journalist, screenwriter,
writer or editor,
music composer.

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Or maybe you’re looking for a more basic service.
I also know how to kneel
and for a special price
I will let you whip me.

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For more information
always at your disposition
my profile is at Infojobs.

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Related

Student Journalist’s Resume Goes Viral, Changes the World

Student Journalist Portfolios: How to Build, Sell Your Brand

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Longtime Daily Iowan archivist and librarian Caroline Dieterle is leaving the University of Iowa student newspaper at semester’s end.  Due to digitization, her position is being eliminated.

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As Dieterle told the DI for a brief retrospective piece, “I’m not [retiring]. I am being made redundant here with what is being made with technology.  I would be happy enough to file the paper indefinitely as long as I was healthy enough to drag myself down to the newsroom.”

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Her appreciable candor extends to her memories of first obtaining the position in 1977.  As she recalled about the bottom-line hiring standards imposed by the paper’s publisher William Casey: “Bill said anybody can work here as long as they’re not an asshole.  You know, over the years I have had some pretty strong opinions and worked on a bunch of campaigns; there has never been any flack from anybody here about how I should shut up . . . because it was a place where people respected free speech and the idealism of the Fourth Estate.”

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There is still a long way to go in 2013, but this has my early vote for college media quote of the year.

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Dieterle gave a similarly juicy one almost exactly three years ago for an in-house university report.  Her initial thoughts on joining the Daily Iowan: “[T]he DI’s reputation as a very liberal, far-out place– to the point of appearing ‘scandalous’ to some– was very appealing.  When I told people I was working there, I heard worried comments about the loose living of the staff, drugs, drinking, etc.  This did not put me off at all.”

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Related

Daily Iowan Dance Marathon Coverage a Reporting Tour de Force

Blogger Criticizes Daily Iowan; Daily Iowan Hires Him

Daily Iowan Editor-in-Chief Resigns After Mugshots Published with Meth Story

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Brian Ringer has resigned from his position as director of student media at the University of Oklahoma, according to multiple trusted sources at OU.

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Most recently, in a brief phone chat, Judy Gibbs Robinson, the editorial adviser to The Oklahoma Daily and OUDaily.com, confirmed, “It is my understanding that Brian has resigned.”

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It is unclear at the moment when he officially tendered his resignation, or if the official part has even yet occurred. But he apparently left the building, literally, yesterday   A student editor at OU described the scene Tuesday in Copeland Hall, student media’s HQ:

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“Brian left the building a few moments before Susan Sasso, associate vice president and associate dean of students, walked in and gathered up all of the pro staff.  She led them over to a conference room inside The Oklahoma Daily’s office and they stayed there for maybe an hour. Eventually, Brian was led back over to the building by an unidentified man and I saw him cleaning out his office.  It was the saddest thing I’ve ever seen.  He packed up his office, box by box, was escorted to the parking lot and handed over his keys.”

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As of this afternoon, Ringer’s bio is still featured on the OU Student Media website. He is also still the contact person on the main phone line voicemail.

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Emails to Sasso, OU public affairs staffer Jerri Culpepper, and Ringer have so far gone unanswered.  From what I gather, a university statement is forthcoming.  I will post the statement and any replies I receive as they come in.

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It is my understanding at this time there is NOT a connection between Ringer’s departure and the parking tickets lawsuit filed late last week by a former OU Daily editor.

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If you have any additional information, please email me.

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A former Oklahoma Daily online editor is suing the University of Oklahoma to gain access to student parking ticket records.

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Joey Stipek, an OU senior, filed the lawsuit Friday against university president David Boren and Open Records Office director Rachel McCombs.  The suit alleges the school has repeatedly, and illegally, rebuffed his efforts to acquire “records he believes are public”– and potentially newsworthy.

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As he wrote in March, “OU gave out almost 52,000 parking citations last year, then dismissed almost a third of them. But you won’t find out here whether athletes, student leaders, faculty or any other special interest group got special treatment.  The reason?  OU won’t release the records.”

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Why the lawsuit specifically?  Stipek’s attorney Nick Harrison, also a former OU Daily staffer, tells the Student Press Law Center it is partially to keep the university honest. In his words, “Administrators try to sit and wait it out until students graduate or lose interest.  They don’t think they have to follow the law.”

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The university is citing the privacy monster FERPA (the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act) as the backbone behind its decision to not release the ticket info.

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In a letter to the Daily this spring, the school’s director of parking and transportation services noted “the university has provided information on locations of tickets given and statistics regarding the numbers of tickets issued . . . [as well as] information related to any non-student ticket recipient, including faculty, staff or university guests to whom the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act does not apply.” (Stipek denies the latter claim in his lawsuit, saying the university told him it did not possess “the technological capabilities” to separate students from non-students in its tickets database.)

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Bottom line, for now, from OU’s view, student tickets are exempt from public scrutiny.

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How truly private are parking tickets though, given their actual targets and method of distribution?  In March, SPLC executive director Frank LoMonte told the Daily, “Tickets are issued to cars, not people. The ticket is not a record belonging to and directly relating to the student. . . . A parking ticket is left stuck on the window of a car where passing pedestrians can look at it.  Would the college put your report card underneath your windshield wiper, or a copy of your transcript?“

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At least one superior court judge in North Carolina also finds the FERPA foundation shaky when it comes to student parking violations.  In a spring 2011 ruling related to a parking tickets access lawsuit filed by UNC’s Daily Tar Heel and other media, judge Howard Manning voiced his support for transparency.  As he wrote at the time, “FERPA does not provide a student with an invisible cloak so that the student can remain hidden from public view.”

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In a related sense, the Daily has been waging a larger transparency fight since last fall– filing lots of public records requests and even keeping a running tally on its website.

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As top staff explained in an editorial in November, “The average citizen won’t often check a committee’s minutes or a politician’s phone records, but these freedoms allow the press to do it for you and to engage in the reporting that uncovers and stops abuses of power. . . . So from now on, we’ll be watching. We’ll be filing more requests for access to significant records so we can fulfill our role by give you the information you need to intelligently wield your political power.”

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The most recent request, submitted by the paper yesterday, is for a rundown of all lawsuits filed against university leadership in the past five years.  The stated rationale is “to get a better perspective on what this most recent lawsuit means for OU.”

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Related

University of Oklahoma Student Media Director Resigns

Oklahoma Daily Has Filed 147 Open Records Requests So Far This Year– See Them All on Its Website

Oklahoma Daily Faces Backlash After Posting Deceased Student’s Autopsy Report

Student Parking Violations: Off-Limits or Fair to Report?

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Student government funding for The Spectator at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania has been cut in half for the next academic year, from $48,000 to less than $24,000.  The financial fallout means a dozen top Spectator staffers will no longer be paid and the paper will publish far fewer copies and possibly less frequently in print– shifting from a weekly to a bimonthly.

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Spectator EIC Meagen Finnerty: “Student government officials ‘told us that if our staff members are passionate then they should work at campus media for free.  But for the number of hours we work here, that isn’t feasible.”

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The harsh 50 percent funding cut is actually less than the sudden drops for other student media at Edinboro.  According to an Erie Times-News report, “Under the student government proposal, Edinboro’s student radio station, WFSE-FM 88.9, would receive $13,600. That is less than a quarter of the $64,430 requested.  The student television station, E-TV, would receive $15,000 after requesting about $40,000.  Pay for staff members would also be eliminated at the radio and television stations.”

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WFSE is the eighth-largest station in the greater Erie market.  General manager Jason Hoffman, about the loss of staff pay: “When it comes down to it, the fact is that students can’t give enough of their time when they’re out there needing to work another job . . . and because of that, we are going to be unable to stay competitive in the Erie market.”

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Times are apparently a bit tough for the university’s student leaders overall. Enrollment at the school is dropping and the SG has roughly $500,000 less to disperse to campus groups than the previous year.

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Meanwhile, tweets late last month show Spectator staff were apparently concerned the funding cuts might shut the paper down entirely.

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Related

UC Irvine Students Approve $3 Plan to Keep Campus Newspaper in Print

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An interesting guest column appeared in yesterday’s Diamondback at the University of Maryland, penned by a UMD graduate student and standout defensive end recently drafted by the Miami Dolphins.

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A.J. Francis has led quite a life.  As he asks students in his write-up, posted officially as a letter to the editor, “[H]ow many NFL signees do you know who graduated college in three-and-a-half years and began working on their master’s degree while still under scholarship, who have always been a big supporter of the LBGT community, used to perform in musicals in high school and have released five mixtapes since age 14?”

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Yet, beyond the self-congrats, the larger point that follows is refreshing for its candor. Francis reflects not on his personal greatness, but on how easy it can be for other students to achieve their own dreams.  In his words, “If so many great things can happen to a scumbag like me, imagine how great your life can be if you are just a genuinely great person.  Good things happen to good people.”

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In a similar sense, he writes, “We are all just as unique! I get more publicity than I ever should have because I am an athlete people perceive as ‘different’ because I live my life the way I want to. That’s not a quality that should be admired because it’s a quality we should all have.  My message is simple: Live your life to the fullest. Sixty years from now, when you’re on your deathbed surrounded by the people you love, will you be thinking about all the diets you cheated? All the shots you didn’t take (metaphorically and alcoholically)? All the nights you got eight hours of sleep? As most of you who own a computer and have seen the YouTube video from last week, my entire life changed in a three-minute span. That’s all it takes.”

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According to The Washington Post, the column is “a farewell piece that doubles as a graduation speech, and a darn good one at that.”

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What would the world be better off without?

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In separate op-eds and articles published recently within campus newspapers nationwide, students have offered a bevy of suggestions on “unnecessary traditions, ideas, and institutions” that should be scrapped or significantly changed.

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Taken together, they represent a massive decluttering worthy of a similar feature published in The Washington Post.  The Post’s annual “Spring Cleaning” asks a select group of thinkers to nominate “ideas, traditions, people, and places we’d be better off without.”  In its five-year run, writers have proposed to the Post that everything from engagement rings, exit polls and Texas to chick flicks, flip-flops and the vice presidency be given the boot.

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In the spirit of their professional opinions, this fairly regular feature brings student voices into the mix. Below is a sampling of things students argue should be scrapped from college campuses and society at-large.

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1) End-of-semester procrastination.  As University of Arkansas student Shawnya Wethington exclaims in the The Arkansas Traveler: “We’re finally getting close … We are dreaming of the lazy days of summer and are trying to project that relaxed attitude onto our current schedules. On the other hand, most students are approaching the busiest points in their semester. If it seems like all of your classes have projects due at once, that’s not too far from the truth … Honestly, though, I don’t know a single student who starts a final project early enough. We all know the project is coming and dutifully ignore it as long as possible. It’s in our nature to procrastinate this final project. Now, you are going to have to pay for it. . . . Your transcript doesn’t reflect the effort you put in for the majority of the semester. It reflects all the way through these final projects.”

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2) Mandatory class attendance.  As Texas Tech University student Mike DuPont II explains in The Daily Toreador: “I recognize there are certain classes that require attendance to fully comprehend the concepts being demonstrated in the class, but if a student pays for the class and pays the fees for the teaching assistants, along with whatever fees may be applied to the tuition and decide not to attend class then that’s their problem, not the professors’. The main issue with penalizing students for attendance is it gives an inaccurate reflection of a student’s quality of work. One may receive a B in a class when they were producing A-level material simply because they missed one more class than everyone else. How can you justify penalizing a student that was obviously successful in the class because they were not in attendance?”

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3) Soft drinks.  As University of Louisville student Dakota Neff writes in The Louisville Cardinal: “Soda, coke, pop, cola: no matter how you refer to the ubiquitous soft drink, you should know that it isn’t the harmless all-American treat that clever marketing campaigns would have you believe. . . . You will find Pepsi brand soft drinks for sale in every dining area, and Pepsi dispensing machines in nearly every building on campus. This is not OK. I understand that the university needs corporate sponsors; but that doesn’t make it all right for them to be promoting something that is in every way detrimental to human health. In my opinion, the overconsumption of sweetened soft drinks is an epidemic. The United States consumes massive amounts of soda, and word on the street is we’re the most overweight and unhealthy country in the world. Is there a correlation here? I believe so.”

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4) Double standards for gay athletes.  As University of South Carolina student Aaron McDuffie points out in The Daily Gamecock: “When Brittney Griner, a three-time All-America Baylor University basketball player, publicly announced her sexuality in a news conference [recently], most sports fans and media outlets didn’t seem to care … In the past few weeks, we’ve spent immeasurable time speculating whether a major sports league like football or men’s basketball could handle a gay player, and the overreaching implications that such an announcement were to occur. . . . Why do we go into a national frenzy over speculation about whether a male athlete comes out as gay, but shrug when a female athlete does so? Unfortunately, it seems America has a double standard when it comes to homosexuality.”

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5) Drugs and alcohol overuse.  As East Carolina University student Jessica Powell writes in the The East Carolinian: “It seems like every month a new drug is introduced into the hands of many unscathed students. Bath salts, Molly, cocaine, Percocet, or benzodiazepines, many students will spend their hard earned money to catch a buzz, whether they are paying their own bills or not. These drugs in moderation are acceptable in the eyes of many, but if you are so strung out and reliant that you lose focus on life, that is where some changes need to be made. Although drugs are typically worse than alcohol, most of us can admit that we have made some really bad decisions while drunk. Whether it is fighting, breaking up, arguing, or having a $100 bar tab, waking up after a morning of drinking is usually filled with regrets. Anything in moderation is okay, but if this becomes a detriment to your well-being, it may be time to stop.”

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A media lecturer at Australia’s University of Sydney recently ordered his students to create and pitch fake news stories to Tharunka, the campus newspaper at the University of New South Wales (UNSW).  The Sydney students– enrolled in the lecturer’s media politics course– were even told to lie about their own backgrounds in order to help secure publication for their faux pieces.

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The class project’s name: Prank Tharunka.  The lecturer, Peter Chen, is actually counting this absurd assignment as 25 percent of students’ final grades.  Hmm.

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As an example, to complete the assignment, a student “attempted to convince [Tharunka] editors that former Miss Universe Jennifer Hawkins had been nominated for an honorary degree from UNSW (she hasn’t).”

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The full project instructions: “Using your understanding of the process-orientation of journalism, design and execute a false story that you attempt to get published in the UNSW student newspaper, Tharunka.  You will need to research the aspects of journalistic practice used by the paper, what type of issues are likely to be covered, and how you would go about getting the issue into the paper.  Once completed (successfully or not), reflect on the practice of PR that uses an understanding of media practice to promote particular messages in your final report.”

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Unsurprisingly, the prank project has pissed off the country’s Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance– an MEAA spokesperson calls it, simply, “wrong and stupid.”  It also runs counter to the university’s academic dishonesty policies, including those featured on the media politics course syllabus.  And it has made some students feel uneasy.

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One enrolled student’s response: “For someone who’d one day want to go into journalism I have a major ethical problem with trying to print lies.  I don’t see the point. I honestly don’t think it taught us much at all except terrible habits.”

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As Tharunka editor Lily Ray writes similarly about all this unethical madness, “Memo to media studies lecturers and tutors anywhere on earth: Feel free to tell your students to write for Tharunka.  We love getting contributions, we love being controversial, we love making people think, and we love it that you love us.  But let’s keep it real, can we?”

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Ray separately tells The Australian, “Encouraging students to lie to the media is teaching them the very opposite of the values they should have.”

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Meanwhile, as Crikey reports, by comparison, “Chen [the lecturer] says such assignments offer students a refreshing change to dry academic essays and show universities can be grounded in the real world.  He adds he did not expect his students to succeed in getting the fake articles into print.  ‘This is not a dangerous activity– we’re not cutting people’s organs out of their stomachs.’”

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Personal note: That last quote from Chen both frightens and humors me greatly.

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Emily Tolan, a graduating senior at Savannah College of Art & Design, has put together a fascinating new video detailing the social media response of the public, press, government, and law enforcement to the Boston Marathon bombings.  The vid, posted Saturday on SCAD’s digital news outlet District, has already racked up more than 30,000 views.

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As SCAD’s assistant director of student media Allison Bennett Dyche mentioned on a popular college media list-serv, “[I]t’s been chosen as a Vimeo Staff Pick and it’s been shared through Fast Company, Minnesota Public Radio, reddit and more.”

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Being of the male species– after my eyes widened at the header– I showed this piece to several female colleagues and friends.  What were their reactions? Appreciative laughter, followed by anecdotes confirming The New School Free Press op-ed’s basic premise.

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A snippet of the piece by Alina Ramirez: “Given the plethora of commercials circulating on the TV airways, women now have as many options for feminine products as they do for makeup.  There are pads with wings, pads for the ‘light’ days, ‘pearl’ tampons, cardboard tampons, and even organic cotton tampons, oh and scented ones– the list goes on.  So of course it would be easy to assume that we’ve come a long way with our menstrual technology, and that, in New York City, we would be the first ones to have a very sleek feminine product dispenser in our bathrooms.  Not really.”

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It is the first time I’ve ever come across the term “menstrual technology.”

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There are major changes afoot for student media at Marquette University– and at least some of the students and media being affected do not like them one bit.

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The university student media board’s plan is a convergent extravaganza “meant to spark increased digital-first content and collaboration between its six branches”– including two student newspapers, a television station, a radio station, and an advertising club.

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As part of the plan, The Marquette Tribune will be published much less in print, focusing instead on web and mobile– the board cites a recent readership audit that found lots of papers are not being grabbed from campus newsstands.  In a related sense, an executive student board will oversee and push staffers among all media “branches” to collaborate and produce content daily for a single site.

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Sounds great?  Not to some students.  An editorial response in the Tribune: “[W]hat we see is a hastily produced plan that blatantly ignores student input and . . . [and] puts the quality of student media at risk. . . . [T]he Student Media Board’s plan is a never-before-seen, arbitrary model for convergence that places web hits and digital performance ahead of quality reporting and good content.”

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Among the concerns voiced by the Trib:

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1) The restructuring pushes collaboration to such extremes the independence and identity of each individual media outlet and org is in danger.

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2) The board is loosely basing the plan on one at Louisiana State University, but in the end “it strayed from that model to create something from scratch that doesn’t have an example of previous success.  Making up a structure– seemingly out of thin air– does not point to a promising outcome for student media.”

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3) In rolling out the plan, the ideas of a few board members are being treated as golden, while the genuine solutions and concerns of the many students currently in the campus media muck and mire are being glossed over.

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4) The chance for students to excel in one editorial and technological area is being tossed in favor of them experimenting and “being mediocre in three or four.”

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Separately, at the tail-end of a goodbye letter published Friday, outgoing Trib managing editor Maria Tsikalas writes, “Through my work in the Office of Admissions, I have been asked by four incoming freshmen this week how to get involved in the Tribune. They don’t ask how to get involved in an ambiguous, ‘converged’ position that no one will see; rather, they ask how to join a publication that will improve their writing and storytelling abilities and will give them meaningful, journalistic work as well as an audience of 3,500 readers.  It is my sincere hope for them and for all future students that they will still find an opportunity at Marquette to do just that.”

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As I’ve previously posted, the battle for Marquette journalism’s future has been ongoing– tackling issues of student media at-large, the Trib specifically, and related classes and the curriculum as a whole.

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Print Cut Fight Goes Digital: Trouble at Marquette Tribune Leads to ‘Outpouring of Support’ Online

Tribune: Marquette Journalism Program Changes Trigger ‘Frustrations Among Students That Cannot Be Ignored’

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