When I began this blog, I thought it would last two weeks. Three, tops. It's now been exactly six weeks. And like my Thunderbird, I have no idea when the brakes will finally bite.
I really want to stop writing, but stuff keeps happening. And people seem interested. The box to the left is the readership from just one week.Over the past month and a half, I've been asked a lot of questions by journalists, advisers, attorneys, and educators. So I thought I'd answer some of them...
What are you trying to accomplish with your blog?
I don't know anymore. At first, I just wanted to poke fun at Student Affairs for saying I did "a fabulous job" as adviser but not letting me volunteer while they searched for my full-time replacement.
But then FAU threatened the editor and tried to close public meetings. So this blog became a weapon. I wanted to report administrators' intimidation tactics and force them to back down.
That worked. I know this because two UP alumni recently requested administrators' emails. They reveal senior officials forwarding each other links to this blog, the editor's blog, and the ensuing media coverage from our blogs.
Do you feel bad about anything you've written?
Yes. I'm just not self-actualized to know exactly what. I'm sure I've gone too far with my snide tone. It was useful up to a point. Now it's annoying. I need to change that.
I realized going into this I'd screw up more than once. I decided it was better to make mistakes of commission rather than omission.
Why are you fighting so publicly? Wouldn't quiet compromise work better?
It hasn't nearly everywhere else.
For more than a decade, I've belonged to an amazing group called College Media Advisers (CMA). When its members are unfairly fired – which happens way too often – CMA rushes to their defense.
Rarely do the advisers win, though. CMA calls and emails the firing administrators and calmly tries to broker a compromise. But there's little incentive for stubborn administrators to cooperate. In extreme cases, CMA issues a censure. More than half of those censures are still in place years later.
How can the students continue to learn and publish if they're constantly at war with their own school?
The University Press has been at war with FAU for all of my 12 years here. When I was hired, the paper had been shut down for several months after a dispute with Student Government – it took me half a semester to restart it.
For the first half of my advising stint, Student Government repeatedly tried to intimidate us. For the second half, it's been administration.
Yet during that span, the UP has won ACP's Story of the Year, four Best of Collegiate Design awards, and several regional SPJ awards. Two editors have won SPJ's Florida College Journalist of the Year, and many others are working in the media – not bad for a paper at a university with no j-school.
So I guess the answer is: We're used to it.
So you really believe the UP is better off battling SG and administration forever?
I don't prefer it. But I'm proud of the staff for making the best of it. Just like soldiers under fire in any war, the UP staff and its alumni have formed unbreakable bonds. The battles they've faced have made them better, tougher journalists in the real world.
It also makes them better journalists at the UP. I don't need to implore the students to request public records or learn open-meetings laws. They're not apathetic about their paper because, as one of them told me many years ago, "If FAU says no one reads our paper because it sucks, why do they get so mad when we investigate them?"
Why are you telling the students to fight this?
I don't tell them to do anything. Paradoxically, that's why they listen to me. But I encourage them to question authority. Especially mine.
I once had an editor at the SunSentinel tell me, "The problem with newspapers is that they want reporters to dig up a story and shake it till it's dead – and then come back to the newsroom and say, 'Yes sir" and 'No sir.' You can't have it both ways."
The UP wants it one way. FAU wants it another.
Can you really win this fight?
Yes, but only if you grade on a curve.
Winning for us is not losing. The newsroom is our castle: We're happy if we can keep it from being stormed by the enemy du jour.
Along the way, we'll do the best journalism we can, and the students will learn that they can fight for their rights and not torpedo their future. Indeed, it may actually help their future.
TOMORROW: Questions about the National Enquirer.
