Printed campus media can be liability

I remember when a college confiscated all the student newspapers from the newsstands because of an upcoming visit by then-president Bill Clinton. Must have been something pretty unflattering in there. I remember here in Morris a music faculty person who according to legend did the same sort of thing with copies of the University Register, when the Register had an op-ed that he disfavored. 

College newspapers can include a lot of pointed opinion. Letters to the editor can be adventures to pore over. Grievance, ax-grinding. There's a lot to be said for just excluding the more ax-grinding stuff. I'm sure some of the commentary can make administrators squirm. 

We're supposed to admire the press for being bold, uninhibited. But sometimes maybe discretion is the better part of valor. I haven't paid close attention to the University Register here in Morris this academic year. One thing that jumped out at me is that it's much smaller than it used to be. Maybe that makes the editor show more discretion as "gatekeeper?" 

Another possibility is that they want to put out a more classy product, you might say a more positive product. I remember decades ago when I'd pick up a paper and see so many letters to the editor from student government members who were at each other's throats. Man, vitriol. One of my high school classmates was in UMM student government and had his name bandied about, initials T.S. I started to wonder if he liked this kind of attention in a perverse way. 

The larger question in my mind was whether "student government" was even a positive thing. Are such great things really at stake with student government? If so, maybe it's dysfunctional. Just let administration run the place. 

Erin Adler

Conflict is not a good thing for UMM to countenance now, really not in any form. When the chancellor has to address today's student government of the absolute certainty that UMM will survive, we ought to worry. There must be a basis for thinking the opposite might happen. The dire possibilities are on our minds with the Star Tribune article by Erin Adler. The sensational headline wording. Not the kind of attention we'd seek now. 

Ditto for what happened in the aftermath: the sudden change at the chancellor position. Advocates for the place had to wonder if the sky might be falling. Well, is the sky falling? UMM and all of higher education is approaching the "demographic cliff." Walking on eggshells a little. 

And a student newspaper with its generally uninhibited ways can be rather like a bull in a China closet. The best example I could cite of this is from many years ago and I don't think it was even reported locally. Details came out much later in a publication called "City Pages." I remember discovering the incident while researching in "City Pages" online, probably when I did my online reading at the library and before I started blogging. 

I pluck everything from my memory here. Old "City Pages" material is now archived online but it's behind a paywall. I don't pay to read anything online. Frankly I don't buy anything online. 

I'll try to be brief summarizing this. The UMM campus "conservatives" at the time were agitated as they generally are, aggrieved at how the prevailing media are so "liberal." Here's my little violin, but I digress. 

The Register editor extended these prickly souls an olive branch. The editor gave them the opportunity to produce some stuff. So the assignment was to cover the U's "rally day" at the capitol. It was a "softball" type of story. 

They just could not behave responsibly. They were disruptive, just to bring attention to themselves! To be sort of anarchistic? Well, someone made up an outrageous quote and attributed it to a very important person in the state legislature. Oh I'll name-drop: Dean Johnson. Johnson got so mad he threatened to sue. I smile as I remember how I personally weighed the theory that Johnson became chairman of the board of regents because of a settlement. Just speculation naturally. 

Dean Johnson

Johnson may be best remembered for his pretty significant dust-up with the Minnesota Supreme Court. He was on the hot seat because of a minister who attended a presentation he gave, a minister with a concealed tape recorder! The Chief Justice had to come forward and make a public denial about something. In factual terms I think Johnson was actually correct. 

I'm veering away from my main point about college newspapers. They can produce controversy in ways that the standard press outside of academia does not. Administrators are in the real world of seeing that the money keeps coming in. The kids might treat their journalism like it's rather a lark. 

I remember what appeared to be an organized letter writing campaign in the Register that attacked a local landlord. I remember a "restaurant review" that absolutely hosed a well-known local restaurant, unfairly in my view although the place I'm sure was not perfect. 

Today UMM tries to build a collaborative relationship with area businesses. 

Perhaps I should elucidate further with the UMM music faculty person. His ire was raised by an op-ed from a student who had been working to try to establish an "intramural jazz band." Kids who had been in high school jazz band but were not studying music at UMM. On the surface I thought the kid's idea was kind of neat. A group made an attempt at rehearsing in the HFA hallway and campus security was called, according to background in the op-ed. The claim was that the music discipline was not going to be cooperating. 

Many years later some kids actually got in trouble for confiscating issues of "Northstar" which in my mind was an absolute bomb-throwing publication, courtesy our aggrieved "conservatives" on campus. 

I could write more here but let me repeat: I don't think a PRINTED on-campus media is even needed anymore, might actually be harmful to the institution's interests if some kids were to behave like a bull in a China closet.

Here's the UMM student newspaper: "The University Register."

 

Addendum: I can remember when the campus paper was the "C.C. Writer." That's for "campus and community." Those were "analog" days when a paper was put together using scissors and a "waxer!"

   

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com