dagblog - Comments for "Teaching Journalism at the University of Georgia"

Our paper was like that, too.

Michael Maiello — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 16:56:42 +0000

In reply to Robert, in reading about this

Our paper was like that, too. There was a very real possibility that we'd be the idiots to drive the thing out of business. At the same time, our writers got paid because it was a business.

Robert, in reading about this

Anonymous — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 15:39:16 +0000

In reply to Thanks for that information,

Robert, in reading about this case, I'm unclear about just how independent the paper is.

In short, if you're really independent, then nobody can tell you what to do.

If it answers to this board, then it seems it's not entirely student-run. And in browsing the redanddead site, I saw that editors had the paper critiqued in a class and had to defend their decisions. When your grade hinges on answering to a professor over the paper's content, that doesn't sound entirely independent. And who are the people on this board? Paper alumni? Some UGA officials, it seems.

I come to this as a 20-year professional reporter trained at a college paper far more independent than this - as in, the paper's executive editor was CEO of the corporation answerable to nobody but the courts. The only "adult" was the General Manager, who offered continuity and kept the offices open year-round, but he wasn't oversight of the students. He was our employee. An alumni advisory board could suggest things, and the editor would be well-advised to listen, but the editor had/has the right to tell the alumni to go to hell.

This was at the University of Pennsylvania, which has no journalism program, so the blurring of boundaries between the paper and the journalism department couldn't exist. There were benefits and drawbacks to that, but I think being entirely independent allowed us to be aggressive in ways that others can't.

That makes my example a little outside the Doc's main point about schools needing to encourage students to stretch. I'd only note that being completely free and not needing to seek constant affirmation from professors or some board was both freeing and scary. It made us measure ourselves against the larger, outside world's requirements and expectations. It gave us freedom, but no safety net to catch us if we overstepped.

- Patrick

(The only factors that made the paper less than 100% independent were the multi-year agreement to have distribution points in campus buildings and the multi-year lease with real rent payments of office space in a university building on the fringes of campus - NOT space in the student center. )

Thanks for your take, destor.

Doctor Cleveland — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 14:17:00 +0000

In reply to I came up at The Daily Lobo,

Thanks for your take, destor. The "shadow" Red and Black is already online: http://redanddead.com/

If it's the "Huffington Post" model that the grownups were after, of course, then they're not just paying the students for poorly-paid media jobs. They're preparing them for unpaid media jobs. And when "pre-professionalism" means asking people to give up their dreams in exchange for future underemployment, there truly is no point.

Thanks for that information,

Doctor Cleveland — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 14:06:54 +0000

In reply to Very thoughtful piece. To

Thanks for that information, Robert. Good to know.

I came up at The Daily Lobo,

Michael Maiello — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 12:52:45 +0000

In reply to Teaching Journalism at the University of Georgia

I came up at The Daily Lobo, the independent paper at the University of New Mexico. Though it collaborated with the journalism and communications department it is self-funded and made its own policies. UNM actually had a rival, non-independent publication where students who want to grow up to do PR work.

Good on the Red & Black staff for walking out. And, yes, they are being ill served by being taught the journalism standards of a dying, hyper-local newspaper industry. Though I suspect they are being taught something even worse than that -- the school hired a bunch of new "creative" executive types to handle advertising, design and such at the paper and the memo looks to me like they are actually pushing for more of a Huffpo model of extreme pandering.

Hopefully the staff is listened to and not simply replaced, though they can probably very successfully create a shadow Red and Black that real journalists will respect when they graduate into the job market. That kind of initiative does tend to be rewarded.

Very thoughtful piece. To

Robert Byrd — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 12:33:41 +0000

In reply to Teaching Journalism at the University of Georgia

Very thoughtful piece. To clarify in the first graf, the Red and Black has not "always" been independent of the University of Georgia. A great staff in 1979-80 took a flying leap and seceded -- because answering to the "grownups" (in our case UGA) was no longer tenable.