If you’ve been reading WSN for the past two weeks, you might’ve noticed that our stories are shorter than they were last semester.
And it’s not just that we’re all recovering from a lazy summer.
One of our goals this year is to cover more than we did before and to make that coverage easier to read and digest. By running more short stories, we hit both of those goals, while also freeing up time for our editors and writers to explore parts of our community that we’ve neglected in the past. (Think you’re in one of those parts? Drop me a line and let us know.)
Over the past few days, we covered things that we might not have found space (or staff) for before — like NYU Press starting to publish books digitally to overcome a rough market, or the closure of a student-run web magazine that covered journalism department speakers.
That doesn’t mean we’re going to be skimping on the big stories. Those’ll still be as long and comprehensive as ever. But we pride ourselves on being the best source for news about NYU, and right now, keeping up that ideal means covering a lot more news.
We’re still working on it, and we’ve still got room for improvement. But it’s just one small way that we’re trying to serve you better. Let us know what you think.
— Adam Playford, managing editor
managing@nyunews.com
212.998.4163
When we receive feedback from our readers, we typically take it in stride. But a comment on an article published yesterday’s truly disturbed me.
I noticed a trend in WSN to complain about every single aspect of NYU (note: I did not say negative). When you people exhaustively complained about the university you are choosing to pay 45+ a year, you get bored. What happens when writers get bored? This.
The comment was posted on the story “Either get in line or online; people ‘on line’ are stupid.” This column was not meant to shed a ray of light on a subject, nor was it meant to make a grand argument. It was meant to illustrate cultural regional differences, as well as to entertain, according to the writer, Rachel P. Kreiter. And because Rachel writes a linguistics column, she analyzed the grammatical mistakes of the phrase “standing on line.” The past few weeks, she has written about weightier topics, such as the language behind NYU’s global colonization.
But the attacks against this subject matter don’t bother me so much. What does bother me is that this reader makes the argument that we should not pay $45,000 a year to attend a university we have “exhaustively complained” about. In other words, if we have so much to complain about, why don’t we leave the university and go somewhere else? The New York Times runs opinion pieces everyday “complaining” about the U.S. So why do those authors live and pay taxes to a nation they “exhaustively complain” about?
“Writing about problems serves a purpose,” WSN Opinion Editor Matt Buchanan said. “It points out problems to get them fixed. Writing about something that’s dandy serves no purpose.”
This comment left on Rachel’s story disturbed me because it implies that we are bitter students who continually complain about being at a university we don’t want to be at. That’s not us. We like plenty of things at this university. In fact, we like what this university offers more than what most other institutions offer — that’s why we’re here. But part of the purpose of a newspaper is to “complain.” We care about NYU. That’s why we continually push the university to be better. That’s why we push our fellow students to be better. We feel we serve the students, and if there is a way to serve the students better, we would like to know — editor@nyunews.com.
To say that we complain because we’re bored is simply unfair.
NYU HOUSING
Today, WSN met with top housing officials at NYU and talked about the perception that NYU is trying to push students out of housing. At the conclusion of the meeting, Bob Kivetz, vice president of auxillary services, told us NYU wants to maintain its 12,000 beds for undergraduate students.
I also learned NYU makes Residential Education a priority in their housing plans. Sophomores don’t necessarily have the priority here, students in RedEd programs do.
And lastly, NYU spokesman John Beckman made a point that NYU students should keep in mind: the administration plans for the long-term, and we, the current students, sometimes suffer because their long-term plans don’t always leave their current students happy. That’s fine, but what we, the students, need is information about their long-term plan so we can plan for our futures. NYU has done an OK job in getting the word out, but we, the students, must also make a reasonable efforts to seek out information about the future of our housing.
But keep an eye out next week for news stories about housing.
ROUNDTABLE MEETINGS
Every once in a while, WSN has these roundtable meetings with NYU officials. This was my first as editor-in-chief. These meetings are productive because we are able to gather all the people involved in a certain NYU issue — this time it was housing — and discuss the issue with all sides covered. Typically, we interview these people on the phone, one by one.
On the subject of face-to-face reporting, I feel we need to do more of it. Our reporters often settle for phone interviews with NYU officials, and we hope to work toward more active reporting.
People in attendance at this meeting were: John Beckman, spokesman; Kelly Franklin, spokeswoman; Bob Kivetz, vice president of auxillary services; Jennifer Brown, housing director; Marc Wais, vice president for student affairs; and Tom Ellett, assistant vice president of residential education. In attendance from WSN were: Thomas Garry and Brittani Manzo, news editors; Rachel Kreiter, editorial board chairwoman; Josh Burd, assistant managing editor; Adam Playford, managing editor; and myself.
WSN launched this blog yesterday, and we were fairly quiet about it. It was uncharacteristic of ourselves. We tend to be loud, and some of us have even made a profession of it. But we haven’t changed — we were (or more accurately, I was) just a day late in getting the word out. If you check our print edition tomorrow, you will see an editor’s note eerily similar to this post.
Unlike myself, the opinion columnists have already bombarded their blog with posts about subject matters that interest the NYU community. We currently have four blogs sections — opinion, arts, sports and editor. We hope to inform, entertain and, ultimately, spark some dialogue. Maybe some of you will even organize a protest, bang drums and sing songs over something we write. But we hope it isn’t because we’re not responsible in our posts. Our beloved opinion editors issued an edict before our blog launched: “No racism, flame wars or outrageous obscenity.”
I digress.
Did you get to the blog OK?
I’m assuming you did since you’re here, but just so you know, it is blogs.nyunews.com. If you put “www” in front of it, you’ll be directed to a site titled “Problem loading page.” If that site ever becomes more engaging than our blog, then please let me know. It would be a sign that both you and WSN have a problem.
This blog allows you to have direct dialogue with writers. In fact, blogs are comment-driven. Our bloggers may be intellectual and funny (might as well throw in good-looking), but we encourage you to add to the discussion with your comments. And when they write something outrageous, we expect someone to put them in line with a scathing, yet clever comment. But watch out because, unlike our article feedback which prohibits writers from posting, our bloggers are allowed to write back and defend their ideas.
With a blog, we are able to publish content whenever and wherever we want. A newspaper comes out every morning, but if our printing press burns down due to a guy in the back making a bonfire burning credit card receipts, you’re going to have to wait for the new presses until you read about it in WSN.
Also, the blog enables us to give you large amounts of content in short posts — they will not exceed 500 words and there is an unlimited amount of space for posts, unlike in our paper.
The editor’s blog will often include content regarding what goes on behind the decisions at WSN. Also, I hope to write about issues within the community that we, as gatekeepers of information at NYU, have unique perspectives on. The managing editor, Adam Playford, and the assistant managing editor, Josh Burd, may also be posting occasionally about newsroom issues. But beyond that, I cannot predict the direction the editor’s blog will take. It will evolve as we feel our way through.
I will end by saying I am very excited for this new venture. It was made possible by managing editor Adam Playford, who put endless hours into getting the blog off the ground; opinion editors Matt Buchanan and Mike Devlin, who took the blog and ran with it (their writers already have 16 posts up in the first day); and film editor John Lichman, who pushed and pushed for the blog.
Keep in mind, we are open to new ideas. If you have a suggestion, a new blog pitch or feedback, e-mail me at editor@nyunews.com.
— Alvin Chang, editor-in-chief
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