Student Newspapers: C/D?

CLASSIC

Student papers are also one of the few ways to distribute information around the student body that don't come from official university sources.

Fuck was I wrong.

There does seem to be a definite quality gap between the papers, though. York seems to always win student paper of the year awards, and with good reason. Varsity, on the other hand, just makes you sit around and wait for the revolution.

the steel press was always a good read!

Student press careerists are no different from other careerists. The only way around them is to beat them at their own game by having a bit of style.

i think that a well designed, well edited, well written text provides skills for students and information for citizens of out instuituion.

I wish ours were that interesting. 8 pages/day, badly written everything, stupid columns twice a week about "campus life," (haha we have to walk so much, no need to worry about the freshman 15!), no political content, a full page every day on the sports teams no one (seriously, no one - we're lucky to get a couple of hundred people at uni basketball games) cares about. No reviews, no culture section, nada.

Really, I have no right to complain, being that I've turned down offers to work on the paper, but I can't take a pay cut. Either I can make $15 an hour doing general construction work and painting, or I can make minimum wage writing about the "search for a new dean."

(I remember him being one of the stalwarts of the Student Newspaper Society back when I was a fresher at Edinburgh University - just before the newspaper went from 20p an issue to being a freesheet)

I had a great time there, that and the radio station meant a lot more to me than the actual grad study time at UCI, teaching writing classes and working with the Net as part of it aside. Great group of writers and folks to work with, still have a couple of friends from that circle, and as a chance to get away from studying/teaching pressures and do something else, it was essential.

I actually think the thing which made me the happiest in the long term was that I was able to get in regular hip-hop coverage via hiring some new writers when I was entertainment editor for a year. The campus was clearly addicted to it and I knew that while what I was covering was great for me at least, I also knew we needed someone else in there to cover that who knew it better than I did. Raymond Lie stopped by, wanted to write, and turned out to be the perfect replacement for me with his regular column and hip-hop focus. Between us I like to think we covered the nineties pretty well for a student paper.

Student papers in the US = much better. I was at UC Santa Cruz for a year, and our student paper was done as a class, with credit. The seminars were taken by an AP journalist, Martha Mendoza -- who won the Pulitzer Prize that year. Which was nice.

In the UK, student papers = staying up till 11 copy-editing an readable column about campus accomodation that no one will ever read.

Only dud thing for me (but classic for Jamie if he's still lurking round these parts) was that I could have interviewed Bill Hicks but didn't (Jamie got to do it instead as I wussed out through large amounts of fear and paranoia). Over the phone, but still, Bill f***ing Hicks!!! And I said NO?!?!?!?!? D'oh to the power of a trillion....

Also no-one ever read the Glasgow University paper anyway, so I don't care how shit everything I wrote was.

I still have some promo singles of theirs. No idea why.

Dom, if you need a guest review for anything, give me a call!

I was part of the team that ran our highschool one, the year before us had gotten caught having bongs in the office so the vice principal was forever prowling through, sometimes we stole stuff off the net because it was funny and once i ran one of minna's pieces even though she graduated two years before. It was lame, and i wish we'd had more fun with it.
We had this chick and she did a lot of pr shit and we all got really bad techno cd's that got used as coasters and some jeans that were probably half my size.
the best story was that the male staff toilets were next to our office and we couldn't be fucked running down the hall to go to the femmes and a mate of mine got caught in there; she had to stay in the stall for about twenty minutes until the teacher who was waiting outside said 'Are you going to be long?' and she said in a deep male-ish voice 'erm, ...yes' god knows what he thought 'he' was doing in there.
but hey, as i said.. it was lame.

What's the steel press? did people read stude papers from other unis? i think i can dimly rember the petester, somehow, which is weird. We must've been ARCH RIVALS in a louise bagshawe style (ask yr girlfriend).
they feel classic when you're on them. I shudder to think how I'd feel if I saw any of it now (which I could since my mum has a bunch of what i did, photocopied for purposes of groanydad stude hack of the year compo).

I was music editor and production editor at the UKC paper, the abysmally-named KRED, and we were lucky enough to have a good group of people who were all close friends (but crucially, friendly and inclusive as well, in many ways a conscious reaction against the clique that preceded us). Being music editor was great - you were the most sought-after person at meetings, everyone would try and suck up to you in the bar afterwards and people in student bands would always try and buy you drinks. Production editor was vastly more stressful - and why is it that the keenest writers always seem to be the worst, but reliably rubbish, while the best are always three days late with every article? Still, it was a great laugh and the best ones are always enjoyable to put together and a vibrant social scene (the worst are fucking demoralising, mind...) Despite the obligatory stuff about canteen prices and fire alarms going off at 4am that no one in their right mind cares about.

Dom, was the music section still called "keys. money. fags." when you were in charge?

In the UK, student papers = staying up till 11 copy-editing an unreadable column about campus accomodation that no one will ever read.

so much truth

LAWL at how many of us were "Music Editor"

I remember pretty much all the papers listed here inc Scan, haha.

I was the music ed at Gair Rhydd, the Cardiff one. It was fun I think. Later holders of the position included The Lex and one of Los Campesinos!, tho no specific baton-passing I don't think.

Whatever a student paper careerist is I fear I was it, but whatever, neither proud nor regretful rilly

I'm pretty sure we got sent the Steel Press regularly during Anna's reign. I still have no idea how.

My main memory of doing student press is walking across Southampton in the rain on a Sunday afternoon in early 2000 to 'interview' Coldplay before a gig in front of 50 or so people at the Joiner's, only to have their guy tell me nothing had been organised after all and they'd gone out to get McDonald's.

I think the empty page got filled with something about Augusto Pinochet, though I could be mistaken.

Not very Dexter Fletcher in Press Gang, I know.

Later holders of the position included The Lex and one of Los Campesinos!, tho no specific baton-passing I don't think.

: D

Gair Rhydd, i read that student rag 1988-1991.

basically all of my friends ive made through the paper here, but there is so much bad writing and misguidedness esp with people who edit your shit that if you don't become sick of it youre crazy

Haha I turned down the opportunity to interview Coldplay around that time, primarily because I thought they were shit and would get nowhere and consequently be a complete waste of a valuable page. For the first couple of terms I ran that section like Hitler and refused to allow anything in that didn't fit my vision. Then I lost interest and would happily throw away two pages on any pretty girl with minimal writing talent who wanted to interview Toploader.

would have loved to be in the position to ever turn down content :(

Haha I turned down the opportunity to interview Coldplay around that time, primarily because I thought they were shit and would get nowhere and consequently be a complete waste of a valuable page.

-- Matt DC, Wednesday, 23 July 2008 22:55 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

Did the same thing with The Darkness

ha you really learn like how much publicists whore out their artists for press. one of the first interviews i ever set up i think was with of montreal and i thought it was a really big deal and then you realize that animal collective's publicist will let you interview them after one email even tho the publication you supposedly write for doesn't even have a website

Being music editor was a piece of piss for the above reason, it was easy to fudge it and make it look even vaguely professional. Having to fill 5 or 6 sports pages and make it interesting, now THAT was tough.

Gair Rhydd, i read that student rag 1988-1991.

-- djmartian, Wednesday, July 23, 2008 9:52 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Remember trawling through the Gair Rhydd archives for something and chancing on a review of 'Surfer Rosa' (ie this would be '88 presumably) which printed the album sleeve next to the text. Some sort of insane feminist cartel in the students union kicked up a such a fuss about the fact that BOOBIES WERE BEING GRATUITOUSLY DISPLAYED IN THE PUBLICATION that they managed to get the whole paper shut down for like a fortnight o_0

I saw The Pixies in The Great Hall in 1989 on The Doolittle Tour

Surfer Rosa before my time at Uni

Student politics = the same, across all ages, whatever is happening in the wider world. One of my greatest achievements was writing something that got the Christian Union de-affiliated from the Students Union because they all hated the gays.

Matt OTM just then too. lol longrange 'action shots' of Weds afternoon football games. One of the sports eds in my time is now the guy who normally does the Saturday Premiership text updates on the 606 website, he still brings the lulz on there sometimes

Also I'm still bitter because my piece where I went to various renowned campus feminists and asked 'Is Every Rugby Player A Potential Rapist?' got spiked :(

"No, some of them are actual ones"

college radio >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> college newspapers

In the US maybe, in the UK no one EVER listens to student radio, because it's just impossible to pick up other than in three rooms on campus with the radio facing the right way and a huge aerial.

This may have changed a little in the internet age, mind.

i used to work with someone who had managed to get sacked as a union officer, i always got the impression this was practically impossible?

nah that was the case at my school where i was station manager matt, i meant more that radio seems way more fun to work for

i wrote a weekly column for the arts page in my junior year and then quit and just wrote letters to the editor. i think one of them is the first google result for my name.

There is definitely a unique style in there and this is what a band like ______ need rather than to be compared to those bands of higher sales stature just for the sake of it. If they are to go froward then the only ay is to develop their own traits and characteristics - something they have done with this original and effective production. A promising debut indeed, as the charts have confirmed.

http://www.sogor.co.uk/cd/Mansun%20-%20Attack%20Of%20The%20Grey%20Lantern.jpg

This sucked away my high school life, but it did give me plenty of opportunities to write in-depth articles about interesting people/topics.

In the US maybe, in the UK no one EVER listens to student radio, because it's just impossible to pick up other than in three rooms on campus with the radio facing the right way and a huge aerial.

This was true where I went to school as well. Every year loads of freshmen would sign up for a time slot and plaster the campus with flyers advertising their show and then realize very quickly that no one ever listened.

haha at some point being the station manager of my schools radio station felt like being the orchestrator of this huge practical joke being played on first years

college radio >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> college newspapers

-- max, Wednesday, 23 July 2008 22:41 (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

:)

listening > writing

campus radio were far too into having people do actual work and volunteer hours and shit that made it not fun and really inaccessible. campus television, well, the few who knew it existed never cared to watch it.

campus newspaper, though — what an amazing two years. free CDs! free meals on production night! getting paid to put text into columns and make it look pretty! having comfy and quiet (if not filty) couches to nap on in between classes! always having people around to talk to! being able to sneak into concerts for free because the offices were behind the main entrance and security! publishing ridiculous hubris that nobody outside of a select few people would understand or care about!

I probably wouldn't be bothered to flip through any student newspaper now, but when you're an actual student: definitely CLASSIC.

filthy, obv

I was the music ed at Gair Rhydd, the Cardiff one. It was fun I think. Later holders of the position included The Lex and one of Los Campesinos!, tho no specific baton-passing I don't think.

i was never music editor! i was tv editor* and then founder & editor of the mag. big boss who made all the sad indie kids listen to trina in the office :D

*i didn't own a tv at any point in university, for at least a term lived in a house without one, and in any case only watched music videos and tennis on it. still got fanmail

oh yeah and ~awards~

Haha, I stand corrected, still hall of fame and that

also you were my predecessor as tv editor surely? were you ever music editor?

omg i just remembered the blue bar

I used to chief edit The Badger at Sussex University. I can't remember much except I once punched the features editor

This paper needs destroying. In fact, I used to do so on a regular basis. That twat that tried to superglue the PM also used to write for it.

Search: Georgetown Hoya. Was so impressed with the dedication of the staff and writers to putting out a well-produced, readable paper twice a week. Also, their commitment to the perceived journalistic credo of neutrality and integrity would put most/all professional UK publications to shame.

ha just my ex-assistant is now claiming to have been the editor on some networking site

I was co-editor of the whole paper at Adelaide Uni for a year in the '90s. Lots of free CDs, saw 300+ movies without having to pay for them, edited vast quantities of unreadable rubbish into grammatically correct, properly spelled unreadable rubbish.

I remember being really pissed off one week when the union preisdent failed (again) to get her compulsory column in on time, and then dictated the bloody thing to me over the phone from some piss-wank student conference she was at. I printed it verbatim, and added "Snuggly hugs and kisses, from your union president" at the end, and sent it off to print. This was, in retrospect, unwise. They tried to withdraw our funding.

Having said that, in many ways was the best job I've had--almost complete creative freedom, no set hours (vs the need for lots of hours and miserable pay), mostly really good people working for us. One of the few positions of authority I've ever held, but then again only over unpaid sub-editors who were in it for free CDs, tickets, etc.