Editor in Chief

As journalists, we here at The Collegian are used to being the ones holding the notepads, recorders and cameras. Every day, reporters and photographers are chasing the stories around State College and, sometimes, beyond.

We've had to make some tough phone calls to families of the deceased, and we've had to push Penn State's administrators and the borough's police officers for answers. All in all, this job toughens us up quite a bit.

But if you ever want to see journalists become uncomfortable, simply turn the tables on them. Aim the camera. Ask the questions.

That's exactly what happened last week in our office, when students from a journalism camp visited to see what it is we do here.

For almost an hour, editors from all divisions of The Collegian sat at the front of a classroom while high school students drilled us with questions about our coverage as well as our lives:

-- Yes, this is a full-time job. Yes, we're still students. Yes, that can be very stressful.

-- How do we balance it all? Coffee. Black.

-- I can't begin to guess how many stories we've run about Joe Paterno.

It's not as though we mind these sessions (they happen at least once a semester), it's just that we're not used to being on the other end. Most journalists aren't. We have Collegian alumni return to the office now and then to impart wisdom on their followers, and they all say it's a similar feeling.

But we all get over it. We're the storytellers, after all.

Besides, there's another group coming in about 12 hours.

Being a good reporter -- at the Collegian and elsewhere -- means being a good investigator and a good writer.

An honored novelist has nothing on a Collegian staff member if he or she can't find the story. A private eye wouldn't make it through our candidate class if he or she couldn't communicate well.

To do our jobs well, we have to do both the searching and the writing; Christopher Columbus as a poet, if you will.

But sometimes, unlike Columbus, America is brought to us. Such was the case when John O'Brien called the Collegian office a few days back.

In his message, he detailed his morning experience like no other. In the cleanest description possible: His toilet water and its, erm, "accompanying products" traveled the wrong way through the pipes -- fast.

We had a quick chuckle/gag at the thought, but knew we had a story students would want to know about. We also knew that we would have a very specific audience, allowing us to have, well, a bit more fun with the piece than the Centre Daily Times could.

So we did. And the result was exactly what we wanted.

Students all over campus were reading the story, showing their friends and spreading it across the Internet.

Who would have guessed that one of most popular stories this summer would have been total crap?

We've got some great investigators down here, and they do their jobs well. But this week has shown us some of the best stories can fall into your lap...

...after shooting into someone else's.

It's a terrifying time in the world of journalism.

We knew what we were getting into when we started at the Collegian years ago; journalism is a field filled with bad hours and worse pay. But in our idealistic "do it for the story" heads, we knew it would be worth it.

Even as major cuts in the field's workforce take place, some as recent as two weeks ago, we here at the Collegian haven't been too stressed. We'll worry about that when it comes to the job search.

But we're doing just fine. It's a beautiful, blissful ignorance -- this windowless basement of the James Building. For now, we still all have a job (albeit not a paying one) and a newspaper to hold (or read online).

For those veteran readers in the audience, you might have noticed something new about us. The old "have you lost weight?" line actually garners a truthful answer. Yes, we have. But that doesn't mean we're happy.

In the summer, we have a much smaller population in town. Low circulation, small staff, little advertising, few stories, fewer news pages -- it's not the Collegian of semesters past.

We don't complain too much about the thin look; we wouldn't be able to do as good of a job covering a fall semester's worth of news in the summer with this size staff, anyway.

It's a painful reminder of the world in which we all reside. It's a world where some newspapers are scrapping their print editions while news Web sites are taking their places.

But for now, our idealism is winning. We're giving up deck chairs for desk chairs and campfires for the AP wire, all because we know it's what we should do. When we graduate, the hours will still be bad and the cost of living will outpace the already-low salaries.

And then, through byline and/or online, we'll be back to our idealistic selves.

For the story.

- Terry

This week, I won't regale you with tales of reader dissatisfaction, stories behind the stories or long-winded explanations of Collegian policy.

This week, I need you to be the editor.

Every Tuesday -- usually around 11 p.m. as the Web editors breathe down my neck for this blog -- I tried to think of a topic that would surprise, inform or entertain you about the drama that is inextricably intertwined with the news. Some weeks, it was a breeze. Getting 62 e-mails about anything is usually a clue it will make for an interesting, if not controversial, theme. Some weeks, I was cold calling non-journalist friends asking them if they would ever spend 6 minutes reading about a board of directors meeting.

But now that it is all said and done, as a journalist, a student and plain curious person, I want to know: What did you like? What did you hate?

Are the inner-workings of The Daily Collegian any clearer? Did you get an understanding of what we do and how we do it? Did you want to know more about the people who make up this well-oiled machine? Did you want a better source for national and international media news? Do you think this forum is just useless?

Your feedback will contribute to the greater good of the blogosphere, I promise. It won't just be satisfying my curiosity, but I'll make sure it gets passed along to Terry Casey, the next editor-in-chief.

Regardless of whether you loved this weekly sound off or thought it was too preachy, too didactic or too whiny -- thanks for reading. I certainly had fun writing.

A lack of motivation got you down?

Blame the nice weather, the growing sleep debt, the overload of schoolwork before finals -- whatever it is, we certainly can relate.

The last two weeks of the academic year are hard on all students. The stirring desire you may have felt to better that G.P.A., exercise more faithfully or eat your leafy greens is disappearing faster than your winter wardrobe.

At The Daily Collegian, we find an inverse correlation between spring fever and our news budgets. With seven newspapers and two magazines to go, everyone's getting tired of the daily grind.

Burning out is very real issue for our staff members come spring sunshine. For nine long months, they tirelessly gave us more than most probably imagined. I know it has been a common thread in this blog, but most days, this job is anything but easy. And sometimes when you're tired -- especially when you've been tired for months -- it's easy to forget why we give up so many hours in the day to be here.

I remember my own brush with burning out quite vividly. I was a sophomore and it was my first semester as an editor. I had a staff of 24 reporters and 10 reporters-in-training. It was finally April and I thought I'd survived all the hard parts, but I found myself dragging my feet on the way down to the paper. Even the thought of breaking news sapped me of my remaining strength.

I was lucky, though. The news adviser and the managing editor noticed my unusual lethargy and insisted I take two days off. Two days, of course, probably doesn't seem like a lot to you, but two days in the news is almost a lifetime. I think my reporters just stopped answering their phones after I called them with so many reminders.

By day three, I had survived my close brush with burn-out status and I was back in the newsroom.

You don't have to tell me that two days wouldn't be enough recovery time for everyone. But the principle of taking a little time off, rather than completely throwing in the towel, still holds true.

So if you're similarly affected with anything-itis these next two weeks, hang in there. We've still got a lot of news to relay before the semester ends. And if news doesn't do it for you, you've still got seven more sudokos.

It seems MTV has hatched a brilliant plot. They've decided to create a TV program about the staff of an award-winning student newspaper and the daily challenges they face. The student newspaper's "fiercely competitive student staff exhibits the aptitude, pride and ambition of future leaders," MTV brags. "They still put their hearts and souls into writing memorable stories and making the best paper they possibly can."

Sound familiar?

Well, it should, because last December local filmmaker Aaron Matthews' The Paper debuted on PBS' Independent Lens series. (I even blogged about it.) The Paper also focused on the student staff and the "future leaders" of journalism. It also examined the daily challenges they were confronted with. The opening credits even feature an eerily similar shot of printing presses whirling away.

A coincidence?

Well, I'm keeping my opinion guarded, so MTV doesn't steal that, too. Of course, there are crucial differences in the way MTV wanted portray their Paper. Unlike Matthews' The Paper, MTV chooses not to focus on "heated rallies, political debates and community concerns." Instead, it seems MTV would rather force us "to watch as the drama unfolds." No, not drama that is intrinsic to breaking news, vocalizing student concerns or investigating stories, but "who'll excel and who'll have a meltdown" and "will they stay friends till the end?"

When I heard about MTV's The Paper, my first reaction was a sigh of relief. Finally, something besides rich, blonde socialites who worry about little else besides boyfriends, bars and bra sizes. Maybe the MTV addicts would learn something about journalism rather than proper drink mixing techniques and club-hopping ettiquette. Maybe a new generation would even be inspired to pick up the newspaper.

Unfortunately, MTV's series opts for drama over substance and cliques over clips. So do yourself a favor and don't watch MTV's cheap knockoff. Yeah, our version is lacking in make-out scenes and catfights, but it's a real look into student journalism and a daily newspaper -- one that hasn't been bent into some MTV distortion.

Contrary to what some may think, reporting on accusations of public lewdness in the Pattee Library is no fun. With a story like this, the line between being professional and pandering to public curiosity shrinks to a width of pin.

I've taken a lot of phone calls and e-mails this week about our coverage of the charges against men's basketball player Stanley Pringle. The junior guard is currently facing charges of open lewdness and disorderly conduct.

I'm sure for many of you this story was nothing more than a funny post on perezhilton.com or a bad joke during Jay Leno's monologue, but to Pringle, his family and friends and the avid basketball fans at Penn State, this story wasn't fodder for some locker room one-liner.

Our readers had questions like: Why this story was printed? What about the newspaper's ethical obligations to the accused? Why is the name of the victim withheld? And, why did The Collegian use the word "masturbation"?

Some of these questions have uncomplicated answers; others don't, but a news story that was sports humor blog deadspin.com's "most read story of the day" deserves careful consideration.

We decided the story was newsworthy because charges were filed against a Penn State student in an on-campus incident involving another student. If any student faced similar charges, we would report on it. However, this student is also well-known for his skills on the basketball court, making him a public figure at this university.

Ethically, jumping to cover the story because of words like "masturbation" and "penis" is clearly immature and salacious, but not covering the story because of those same words is worse. We're all adults, and we tried to act like adults -- what Pringle is accused of is a crime and any on-campus crime is an issue that we believe is wholly relevant to student life.

We also always strive for clarity. While he was officially charged with "open lewdness," we decided that was not a well-known term. In contrast, we thought most readers would immediately understand what "public masturbation" entailed. We weren't trying to be facetious or graphic; we were trying to leave readers with a clear impression of the incident, according to police.

Of course, any story involving criminal charges is handled extra carefully. In these articles, newspapers have an obligation not only their readers, but to the victim and the accused. The victim's name is not present in the story because it is The Daily Collegian's policy not to name victims of sexual crimes. These types of crimes are already underreported, and by publicly naming the victims, others could be deterred from reporting such an assault. Furthermore, there is still a public stigma society attaches to victims of sexual crimes, who are often judged as much as their attacker.

As for the accused, we offer him or her the only thing we have -- space in the newspaper to tell his or her side of the story. When someone charged with a crime refuses to talk to us, we turn to the next best thing: the criminal complaint.

The criminal complaint offers a brief transcript of the police's interview with the accused. This is how we learned that Pringle told the officers that he was not masturbating but had his hand down his pants. We tried to be as fair as possible in choosing which quotes to publish, but in case you disagreed, we posted the full criminal complaint online so you could read it for yourselves.

This issue is by no means clear cut. Let us know what you think: Send a letter to the editor.

I know it's been a while, but after such an exciting weekend it's time for another look at one of the stories behind the stories.

Unless you live beneath a rock on Vairo Boulevard, you know that last weekend Barack Obama, the leading democratic candidate for the presidency, played a pick-up game in BJC, fed some baby cows and spoke to 22,000 on the Old Main lawn.

The descent of this political rock star's entourage on State College made a spring Sunday morning look like a fall football Saturday -- one does not usually wait 20 minutes for coffee before noon on Sunday, of this I am sure.

Many students waited in line for hours to glimpse the man who could be our next president, but the Collegian's in-depth projects reporter Katharine Lackey had a six-minute interview with Obama on his tour bus before he appeared at Old Main.

What was it like talking to a political candidate who has been making history and headlines? Read on for Kat's experience.

Me: How in the world did The Daily Collegian get six minutes with one of the most popular men on the planet right now? And more importantly, did he time you?

Kat: Basically, I bugged his Pa. press people a lot. When we knew he was coming for sure, I called [his Pennsylvania spokesperson] two times and e-mailed him a couple times.

Obama didn't time me, but his Pa. spokesperson was sitting next to me with his watch out. Obama ran a little after the allotted five minutes, and at the end, the press guy said, 'OK that's it.'

Me: What was he like in person?

Kat: He was very nice and surprisingly soft-spoken. I was expecting him to have
this... loud presence. But he was very relaxed, very soft-spoken, very calm.

Me: How did his tour bus compare to a CATA bus?

Kat: It's looks like one of those MTV celebrity buses. There were leather seats, a huge flat-screen TV in the corner. Yeah, not exactly like CATA.

Me: How did you come up with questions? Was there anything you particularly wanted to ask?

Kat: There was so much! I wanted to talk to him forever, for at least an hour. I wanted to know how much sleep he got each night. He doesn't seem too tired, but I know he doesn't get that much sleep. I just really wanted to hear from him why he wanted to run. I wanted to know what he thinks about his Secret Service people. When I was on the bus, there were at least somewhere between four and six Secret Service men. They were always following him around and I got tapped on the shoulder once because I blocked a Secret Service man's view of Obama. I don't know [if] a person could get used to that.

But I only had five minutes, I had no time. So I just thought about what our readers would want to hear from him and how his plans would have an affect on college students.

Me: Besides his soft-spokenness, did anything surprise you about him?

Kat: He's an ordinary person. I suspected his presence would be overpowering. But
he was standing around talking to anyone.

Me: What was your favorite part of seeing the presidential hopeful feed a cow?

Kat: It was just cute. In the end, he said, "she chowed that sucker down." It was also funny, because the press people were getting eaten alive by the cows. The cows were trying to eat them and munch on them; even Obama was pointing at them and laughing a little bit.

Me: It was funny that the secret service detail had to wear those blue booties.
Why was that and did they like them?

Kat: It was a bio-security measure. They don't want you bringing diseases into the
barn. They don't know where you've been. Obama got brand new Timberland shoes so he wouldn't have to wear the booties. I was a little afraid to talk to the secret service men. They seemed much happier once they had taken them off.

Me: Anything you want to add about the experience?

Kat: As a journalism student, it was really, really cool sitting with all these people
from the Associated Press, CBS, CNN and ABC, and they've been on the bus for about a month. They were so happy to be there, so that was really cool as well.

If you saw the opinions page on Monday, maybe you thought The Daily Collegian wanted to get in on the "endorsement fever." Maybe we saw Chuck Norris advertisements for Huckabee one too many times and declared, if he can do it, so can we.

Well, that wasn't exactly the thought process in our basement on Burrowes Street, though we're pretty convinced we could do a mean roundhouse kick. We endorse (or anti-endorse) a candidate for student government every year. Sometimes they win, sometimes they don't. In years past, I just focused on fitting the multiple interviews and lively debate into my schedule.

But this year, as the editor-in-chief, I didn't have the luxury of just numbly accepting the status quo. So as election time rolled around, I began thinking about the rationale behind the process.

Endorsing a political candidate is common, especially in local races. Newspapers have an obligation to the readers as their public servant. The editorial board has an opportunity to do what few private citizens can -- sit down with the candidate with no cameras, no audiences, no interferences -- and fire off questions that the candidate can't dodge or ignore or refuse to answer.

Sometimes journalists see a side of a candidate that the public rarely does. Whether that's just the nature of the relationship between the candidate and the media, I'm not sure. But you can learn just as much, if not more, about a candidate when he or she doesn't have a script to follow.

It is also important to remember that it is the editorial board -- not the reporters -- choosing the candidate that in their minds will best represent the public.

I've always had an unsettling feeling that people can't separate a board of editors and a reporter. Thus, the editorial only fuels accusations of bias. Because isn't it a newspaper's duty to be balanced, above all?

And for almost every single page in our paper it is. But on the opinion page, we get a chance to express just that -- our opinion. It's our chance to draw conclusions from the facts and present them to you, the readers.

Plus, in a 10-day election cycle, you probably don't have time to attend multiple debates at the HUB or track down the candidates between classes to get their stance on tuition increases. Some of you may not even know there is a student government race underway.

So we tried to help. We probed the candidates on their platforms in case you couldn't. And using all the information we learned, we chose the team we think will serve you, the students, best.

And there's a perfect outlet for you to express whether you agree or disagree: log on to elections.psu.edu today and vote.

After all, Chuck Norris can do it -- before counting to infinity. Twice.

The future of The Daily Collegian is in very capable hands.

Last night, two extremely hard-working individuals were selected to lead the news and business divisions for the 2008-09 academic year. Terry Casey will serve as editor-in-chief. Stef Kemmler will serve as business manager.

It's the culmination of years of late nights, tough decisions and sacrifices that, hopefully now, seem well worth it. It's also a process seeped in tradition.

Earlier this year, the candidates prepared a proposal that stated their vision for the future of the organization. They submitted a cover letter, a resume, a list of references and an academic transcript. Last night in front of the staff, they sat before the Collegian's board of directors and answered some tough questions about their philosophies on good journalism and good management. The news and business advisers weighed in; recommendations by the staff were passed around.

After deliberation by the board, the president announced the decision in the newsroom to cheers and applause by both staffs. Then we cracked two champagne bottles, gave hasty toasts and up ended the inch of cheap champagne in honor of the future leaders.

I can remember every moment last year -- the questions I expected and the ones I didn't, the sweaty palms, the itchy suit and the feeling at the end of exhilaration and fear. And now on the other side of the process -- the one passing the torch instead of receiving it -- it's rather bittersweet.

My tenure is winding down, and now, another will carry about the weighty responsibility for a paper that so many cherish.

I can't say I'm terribly depressed just yet -- there's too much to do. Though already well versed in Collegian procedure and history, Terry has some tough decisions to make in the weeks ahead. He'll have to pick his managing editors -- in effect, his right and left hands. He'll have to pick the football reporters, one of the most sought-after beats on the paper. He'll have to set the course for the Collegian in a new school year. The possibilities and the potential are endless.

But now, we celebrate. There are way too many serious times ahead not to cherish the good ones.

And I hope it's not my inch of champagne talking, but I know I will sleep at little easier tonight with the reassurance that this paper is in very talented hands.