I owe my journalism success to The BG News.
On May 8, I graduated from Bowling Green State University and, therefore, have been officially bumped out of my college journalism career at the daily paper. This closing blog post is written in honor of my four years at the award-winning publication.
I've met great people and learned invaluable skills. The writing, reporting, editing and multimedia experiences helped me nail my summer reporting internship with The Columbus Dispatch. I couldn't be happier to move on in my post-grad career in a field I've grown to love.
Who doesn't want to meet new people and hear new stories every day at work? I can't believe I'll get paid to do this.
So to all those sticking around The BG News, good luck and keep up the reputation my graduating class has made in the 2009-10 year. Readers keep reading and viewers keep an eye on the website (facelift coming in the fall).
But this isn't the last you'll hear from me about journalism. I'll be starting another blog after I start my reporting internship May 17. Stay tuned.
In Virginia, college newspapers have been banned from running alcohol-related advertising, according to a new ruling.
Virginia's alcohol regulatory board thinks the ban is needed to prevent underage drinking and alcohol use in general among college students. On April 12, the court ruled to reverse a lower-court decision favoring the student newspapers at Virginia Tech (The Collegiate Times) and the University of Virginia (The Cavalier Daily).
This move will cost the two newspapers $30,000 in annual ad revenues. An appeal is possible.
Here at The BG News, the ad staff adheres to the state of Ohio's first amendment commercial speech laws when deciding which ads are fit to run and which are not. Just because an ad is alcohol-related, does not mean it will not be able to run.
And just because a college newspaper runs an alcohol ad, does not mean college students will be compelled to drink alcohol, though that's what the Virginia board believes.
"It is counterintuitive for alcohol vendors to spend their money on advertisements in newspapers with relatively limited circulation, directed primarily at college students, if they believed that these ads would not increase demand by college students," according to the decision.
College newspapers do not run alcohol-related ads to influence students. They run ads because that is a reflection of their readership. It's part of the atmosphere, whether or not all partake.
The BG News runs few alcohol-related ads, not because it censors, but because few companies take out the space.
Listen to this audio piece for Director of Student Publications (and BG News adviser) Bob Bortel's take on alcohol in college newspaper advertising.
Journalists are not in this field for the money.
A common misconception is that the editor-in-chief of The BG News makes a lot of money. That simply is not the case.
While the BGSU Undergraduate Student Government president may earn a year's tuition and fees as compensation for labor (more than $9,000), no one at the daily student newspaper makes near that much. Or half that much.
Students looking to practice their journalism skills work at the newspaper for free initially and then can earn a meager bi-weekly salary if they are reliable and stick around. They are getting paid in experience. How else would they have clips to show potential employers?
The student editor-in-chief is given a set number of dollars to divide among the nearly 150 students on staff, doling out paychecks to editors, staffer veterans and even deciding their own cut of the (tiny) pie. Working with numbers isn't usually fun for a journalist, but determining student incomes is especially taxing (no pun intended).
If an editor wants to pay more people, he or she must pay others (including herself or himself) less. It's always been this way, and with declining newspaper revenues, student journalists are becoming more and more aware of these realities. And though I won't be listing The BG News payroll on this blog, know cuts were made to pay more students this semester.
As journalists, we're in the truth business, not the making big money business. Journalists just plug along (and there's always the hope of winning the lottery).
I'm officially a lame duck.
The 11-member Board of Student Publications picked the 2010-2011 editor-in-chief of The BG News at the beginning of this month. Heather Linder is the next editor to lead the award-winning student newspaper. The paper will be hers once I am forced out of the position (by graduation May 8).
The board of journalism faculty, alumni and a couple students chooses the student editor to run the daily publication. At a professional publication, an editor is not chosen by this type of panel. They are approved from within the news organization and oversee the structure that is already set in place (unless they lose positions).
At The BG News, an editor can choose the newsroom hierarchy. The number and title of editors can change, as well as work flow, deadlines and salaries. My successor will probably switch up the editor positions or job descriptions, which is all right with me.
In honor of this passing of the torch, here's a look at the editor hierarchy for 2009-2010:
*Editor-in-chief
Managing editor
Campus editor -- City Editor
In Focus editor
Special sections editor
Sports editor -- Assistant Sports editor
Copy chief
Design editor
Forum (opinion) editor -- Assistant Forum editor
Pulse editor -- Assistant Pulse editor
Photo editor
Multimedia editor
Web editor
The BG News is No. 1 in Ohio and No. 2 in the region.
At the Region 4 Society of Professional Journalists conference (see earlier post), The BG News was picked as the second best all-around daily student newspaper, edging out Kent State (who took third place) and placing just behind West Virginia University.
These rankings show The BG News is the best all-around student paper in Ohio based on the three specific issues SPJ used to judge in the Mark of Excellence Awards. The paper also received a second place finish in sports photography (ala Christina McGinnis) and its magazine counterpart The Key took first place in the region, which moves the publication on to be judged in the national fall competition.
This honor is one The BG News hasn't received in four years, according to the director of Student Publications. Congrats and thanks to all the students whose work is responsible for this amazing accomplishment.
Here's a list of judging criteria SPJ uses to determine overall excellence:
1. Accuracy and completeness
2. Enterprise and ingenuity
3. Adherence to high journalistic standards
4. Significance and effectiveness
5. Extenuating circumstances
6. Clarity, insight and respect for the audience
7. Creative use of the medium’s unique capabilities
8. Adherence to the SPJ Code of Ethics
9. Judges will weigh the resources available to the student when selecting the winners.
Several BG News staffers are traveling to Cleveland to attend the Region 4 Society of Professional Journalists conference this weekend. The student newspaper will find out what two awards it will take home on Saturday.
In honor of the awards, I've mapped out the 22 college student SPJ chapters of Region 4 in Ohio, Michigan, West Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
View SPJ student chapters in a larger map
You don't want to overwhelm a reader.
Some news stories are just told better with a series of articles focusing on specific aspects of one issue. One story with that amount of information can confuse the reader or let them lose sight of a key point.
This kind of in-depth reporting takes longer to gather, piece together and (hopefully) emits emotion from its readers. Readers should walk away thinking, "Wow, I've learned something new and important." Not wondering why they invested so much time on your boring, unclear story.
This week in The BG News, we're running a series about BGSU's Employee Separation Program, which has 149 employees leaving within the next year to save the University some money. The three-part series examines how faculty, administrative staff and classified staff will be affected by the departure, focusing more on the people leaving than the process (which has yet to be determined).
In honor of this series, I've gathered a list of five other news series you might want to take a look at:
1. Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward's series about Watergate led to President Richard Nixon's resignation.
2. The Toledo Blade's Tiger Force series exposed Vietnam war crimes against civilians.
3. The Hartford Courant took a look at nursing home patient care in one of its series.
4. NBC created a five-part video series looking at the state of African American women in society.
5. The Las Vegas Sun forced government to reexamine the safety of construction workers with its series.
I owe my journalism success to The BG News.
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