My evil plan
I love when ideas collide. It's an oddly gratifying experience.
As I may have mentioned earlier in the blog (and as most of you are aware anyway), I'm the news editor of a student newspaper at a Canadian university. I am the entire paid staff of the news section. I've been continually frustrated with space, content and manpower (sorry, I'm not sure what the inclusive term for that is) constraints. I've wanted (in my dreams) a reliable news staff to which I could assign beats, more room in the paper and freer reign over what goes in. In lieu of more room in the paper, I wanted the chance for more stories to be posted online. There's just too much happening to cram any meaningful amount into three pages of a tabloid sized paper. Needless to say, most of that was untenable.
Last night Jer and I went to the Annual General Meeting of the Central Student Association (CSA). They needed to get 150 students out of 16,000 to get quorum. They needed 50 students just to approve the Auditor's Report. They got only 45 or 46. Truly pathetic.
While sitting there in the meeting I got frustrated that I couldn't focus the entire news section on the student government. It was only a momentary frustration since there is so many other important things to be covered.
Later Jer and I went downtown to a bar and ended up talking about the weaknesses, strengths and potential of online journalism. He's got two excellent blog entries up right now on his thoughts about online journalism on his blog. He's been messing with the format and the current incarnation doesn't allow me to link to the specific entries. Look for Blogology, parts 1 and 2, under Thursday, March 18.
So I get home eventually and was struck by an idea that wouldn't let my mind go until after 4am.
This university needs a web zine completely devoted to taking the CSA to task for everything it does, and I want to start it.
It wouldn't try to be the definitive source for all the news relevant to the students on this campus. It would apply the highest standards of journalism in being a watchdog group for an organization that has managed to completely alienate a majority of it's membership.
Ideally, this would be the role of the campus newspaper. But the newspaper must also act as watchdog on a number of other groups that exert power within the university community. When it comes to students' interests the campus paper's news section is supposed to be a monitor on the CSA, the administration, the Board of Governors, the university Senate, the organization that represents students living in residence, the city and a bunch of other groups.
On top of that it must provide information about current events that students need and don't have the time to find for themselves. And there is one person responsible for sifting through all of that, digging into each organization's actions and deciding what three stories get covered each week.
Yeah fucking right.
There is no way that there is enough attention given to any one of those groups, let alone the CSA.
What the web zine would do is devote all its time to keeping the CSA accountable to the student body. It would call CSA members on stupid and offensive things they've said about the student body, question decisions, poll students on their opinions of the CSA & what it does, post op-ed pieces pointing out problems with how the CSA does things while also offering solutions or suggestions for improvement. It would tell students which elected officials skip meetings and which ones are there slogging it out in their name. It would also look at what the CSA does well too. But most important, it would strive to engage students and to make their own government interesting and relevant to them.
It would also provide some healthy competition for the campus paper. And maybe flag some important issues that the paper could then pick up on and devote its greater resources to tackling.
Unfortunately, I'm having this idea near the end of the school year. Not the best timing.
Anyway, this is just a thumbnail sketch of the idea. An introduction to it more than anything.
Thoughts?
As I may have mentioned earlier in the blog (and as most of you are aware anyway), I'm the news editor of a student newspaper at a Canadian university. I am the entire paid staff of the news section. I've been continually frustrated with space, content and manpower (sorry, I'm not sure what the inclusive term for that is) constraints. I've wanted (in my dreams) a reliable news staff to which I could assign beats, more room in the paper and freer reign over what goes in. In lieu of more room in the paper, I wanted the chance for more stories to be posted online. There's just too much happening to cram any meaningful amount into three pages of a tabloid sized paper. Needless to say, most of that was untenable.
Last night Jer and I went to the Annual General Meeting of the Central Student Association (CSA). They needed to get 150 students out of 16,000 to get quorum. They needed 50 students just to approve the Auditor's Report. They got only 45 or 46. Truly pathetic.
While sitting there in the meeting I got frustrated that I couldn't focus the entire news section on the student government. It was only a momentary frustration since there is so many other important things to be covered.
Later Jer and I went downtown to a bar and ended up talking about the weaknesses, strengths and potential of online journalism. He's got two excellent blog entries up right now on his thoughts about online journalism on his blog. He's been messing with the format and the current incarnation doesn't allow me to link to the specific entries. Look for Blogology, parts 1 and 2, under Thursday, March 18.
So I get home eventually and was struck by an idea that wouldn't let my mind go until after 4am.
This university needs a web zine completely devoted to taking the CSA to task for everything it does, and I want to start it.
It wouldn't try to be the definitive source for all the news relevant to the students on this campus. It would apply the highest standards of journalism in being a watchdog group for an organization that has managed to completely alienate a majority of it's membership.
Ideally, this would be the role of the campus newspaper. But the newspaper must also act as watchdog on a number of other groups that exert power within the university community. When it comes to students' interests the campus paper's news section is supposed to be a monitor on the CSA, the administration, the Board of Governors, the university Senate, the organization that represents students living in residence, the city and a bunch of other groups.
On top of that it must provide information about current events that students need and don't have the time to find for themselves. And there is one person responsible for sifting through all of that, digging into each organization's actions and deciding what three stories get covered each week.
Yeah fucking right.
There is no way that there is enough attention given to any one of those groups, let alone the CSA.
What the web zine would do is devote all its time to keeping the CSA accountable to the student body. It would call CSA members on stupid and offensive things they've said about the student body, question decisions, poll students on their opinions of the CSA & what it does, post op-ed pieces pointing out problems with how the CSA does things while also offering solutions or suggestions for improvement. It would tell students which elected officials skip meetings and which ones are there slogging it out in their name. It would also look at what the CSA does well too. But most important, it would strive to engage students and to make their own government interesting and relevant to them.
It would also provide some healthy competition for the campus paper. And maybe flag some important issues that the paper could then pick up on and devote its greater resources to tackling.
Unfortunately, I'm having this idea near the end of the school year. Not the best timing.
Anyway, this is just a thumbnail sketch of the idea. An introduction to it more than anything.
Thoughts?
