Looks like it’s going to be a higher education day here on Live from Silver City. Right now, we’re going to head southeast to Las Cruces, for part one in a series of posts on a topic close to my heart: campus newspapers.
As many of the Daily Press readers know, Jacqueline Armendariz has been serving as our intern the past two months. She’s a journalism major at NMSU, and, as a freshman there, began working for the campus newspaper, the Round Up. Positions at that paper are were highly competitive, so trust that she’s a bright young reporter.
Our post today is focused on the Round Up. To understand the problem I’m going to discuss, we need to look at the process by which many student editors are selected across the country, including at NMSU and WNMU. The school establishes a “student publications board,” comprised of students, faculty and staff, which evaluates applications for the editor position.
This year, the board hired Mark Morris. Unfortunately, from what I understand, Morris has no background in journalism. Now, the Round Up is not tied to the journalism department, and operates as an independent organization. Nonetheless, campus newspapers are the hands-on classrooms for student journalists.
At WNMU, where I was hired as editor, its harder to find somebody with a background in journalism; WNMU has no journalism program. But NMSU is quite different, in that the j-school there is top-notch. The Round Up has an excellent reputation as a student publication, and that’s a direct reflection on the training these students receive.
So, why hire an editor who has no experience? That’s one of the questions we’ll be looking into during the next few days.
Lizzy Gary
Well, it’ll be mighty interesting to see what you have to say about hiring an editor who has no experience, considering you’ve just explained that you were hired as an editor with no experience. Be very careful. Education is important, no doubt, but you yourself are a shining example of someone who succeeds without the requisite classroom experience. Be very careful here–there are people all over the world who learn outside of a traditional classroom, and whose value is at least equal to someone who had the benefit of a high school and/or college education. In this day and age, aren’t we all prepared to recognize that the way we’ve done things may not necessarily be the way we should continue to do them?
okay, enough. I just wanted to send the note that I’ll be reading with interest tomorrow, and expecting that you will not disappoint.
your mother
Adam Middleditch
My name is Adam Middleditch and I am a journalism student of the NMSU program and I worked as a news reporter for the round up through the spring and fall semesters of 2005. I worked under two separate editors there, the first was a wildlife science graduate student (Meg Ewald), the second was a journalism student (Paige Smaga). I feel both did generally very well in the editor-in-chief position, though they were studying very different things. As far as I can tell, the editor-in-chief has to have a mixture of a little bit of all the skills of each member of the newspaper staff. He has to know what constitutes good written content, photo/art/design content, advertising and he should also be at least a little bit business savvy. The editor-in-chief has to be a bit of a renaissance man to keep the paper afloat and profiting while continuing to serve that o-so-valuable role in our society: the public forum. That being said, I don’t know Mark Morris personally and I don’t know if he fits the criteria. Maybe he has an uncanny sense of journalistic integrity along with enough business know-how to do a satisfactory job. If not, however, the Round Up could be on its way to disaster during a period when NMSU students, staff and faculty deserve to be well-informed. NMSU president Michael Martin is restructuring the whole university and this is as bad a time as any for the Round Up to drop the ball and leave the campus population not only blind, but also without a voice.
Rebecca Craig
I was the intern at the Silver City Daily Press last year. That was one of the more important learning experiences I have had so far. It helped me get a job at the Round Up. But back then, there were editors who were actually in journalism, and they knew that people who have had internships were more qualified then those who are not. However, even people not in this field should know this. It is common sense!
Another thing that really ticks me off is the person who has been hired instead of Carlos, actually threatend a staff member last year… she also quit the following semester. I was talking to my dad the other night and this threat actaully qualifies as an assult. She SHOULD NOT have been re-hired. I told Human Resources about this, and of the fact that there was an incident report about this as well as witnesses. I am angry! However, I have a better job offer this year and havn’t decided if I would like to go back. I think I will apply just to see if Mark Morris allows my hire. Quite frankly, he can’t use the un-qualified excuse for me.