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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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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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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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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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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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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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Related

5 Things College Students Want to Get Rid Of: Uncaring Profs, Rap, Exercise, February & Not Enjoying Your 20s

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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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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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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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Related

Student Press Headlines That Make Me Giggle: Poop and Mold Edition

Student Press Headlines That Make Me Giggle: Columbia University’s ‘War on Fun’

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