Colo. State student paper

As a grad of this apparently less than third-rate journalism school who is doing OK for himself in the business and knows of a few others who are too, I take mild offense to that.

That said, this was a guy who took this controversy into his own hands and knew exactly the result it would get. Using the word fuck in huge type isn't going to go unnoticed. One of the early accounts I read said the editorial board was split. If that's the case, this editor decided he didn't care what anyone else thought. Two editor in chiefs from the paper during my stint there are at major metros and probably are on the same page politically as this statement. But I don't think there is a chance in hell they would have let that run.

Everyone at a college paper takes liberties and can get away with stuff they never would be able to in the real world. That is the great thing about a college paper. But this definitely crossed the line. To say it was to stick up for First Amendment rights, when I don't think they were being challenged, especially at this paper, is a pretty lame excuse.

 

The one thing all of you are forgetting is this:

http://www.collegehumor.com/picture:1774014

someone posted this on here a couple weeks back. It's from the same newspaper, the CSU student paper. What the hell is going on there? The combination of the two are good enough for me to fire the guy. No one's using their head there.

 

Seriously, this guy thinks the school paper is a toy.

Well, fuck him. He's ruining it for the real journalists who wish to move on with their careers, not go be a rabble rouser.

What an asshat. I hope CSU journalism alumni threaten to withhold all their donations and lobby the administration to withdraw funding until this idiot is fired.

Edit: It's late and I'm an idiot.

 

Kid should be fired. Maybe he'll learn his lesson.

Imagine how bad it would be if he were a rabble rouser.

The ravel rouser is a much more manageable breed of rouser.

 

Wow...although what editor hasn't had the urge to close a city council story headline with "...Because They're a Collection of Small-Minded Assholes."

 

That'd either be an awfully big hed or an awfully small font.

 

Only at poorly-run, bullshit college papers.

 

OK...subhead.

 

The editor in question was on the front page of Thursday's Rocky Mountain News.

"Profanity packs the house"

 

I bet this pecker is similar to those look-how-cool-I-am, student-paper pricks who show up wearing their school's colors as freshmen, get embarassed when someone cracks on them about it, and then come back the next year saying things like "I'm not a homer. In fact, I cheer for the other team every week. I hate my school's teams."

Hey, dipshit, that's not good journalism, either.

 

I have no problem with using profanity in the newsroom or in your personal life. Hell, I've cussed like a sailor in my day.

But if you can't write an editorial without expressing yourself in such a coarse manner, you display wanton ignorance. Use facts to support your opinion. Find a way to express the sentiment without uttering a profane word or even hinting at one. But don't use the eff bomb just to titillate.

If he simply wrote an anti-Bush editorial and there were no profanity, we likely wouldn't be having this discussion unless it were March 2003. But the guy's got to go.

No. When I was managing editor of a biweekly publication that was a historically black paper on my university campus, I wouldn't let the staff get away with printing profanity at all.

My take was: If you can't get away with it in the real world, you shouldn't be able to get away with it at any level of journalism.

 

I completely agree, work on a college paper should be treated as work in the real world. And I never would have tolerated profanity either. Maybe I should rephrase and say there are more freedoms at college papers to learn the trade -- trials and tribulations if you will. Most of us took advantage of those freedoms, whether it was experimenting with a writing style or taking a chance on subject matter. You have more constraints in the real world, especially early in a career, to do those things. I don't think that automatically means putting the word fuck in huge type or publishing naked pictures of your roommate just because you can. As I implied before, this crap wouldn't have happened when I was at the Collegian. Those of us that were there took too much pride in the product and what we were trying to do, learn and accomplish.