Newspaper Page Text
Page 18 • UGA: An Independent Look • May 1990
INDEPENDENCE
From page 17
The Red and Black, who is now
state editor at The Atlanta
Journal and Constitution.
By the time the newspaper left
campus, it was paying 85 percent
of its own operating expanses
through advertising revenue.
One of the main reasons
students and faculty supported
the separation was because The
Red and Black had outgrown its
roots as a laboratory newspaper,
one in which a journalism
instructor exercises much more
control over the publication.
Cochran described the paper's
"nebulous" position in the late
'70s as being "somewhat
independent from the
University, but not quite."
In addition, the University felt
itself caught in a catch-22. It
provided funding for the
newspaper but had no say over
what went in it, and ironically,
Davison and the University were
the main focus of The Red and
Black's coverage. The popular
perception based on the
Univeristy of Florida's case was
that a university president was
publisher of a campus-affiliated
pap>er, although Mark Goodman
at the Student Press Law Center
in Washington D.C., says the
courts have never viewed it that
way.
"Everybody wanted it for
different reasons and everybody
got together to ensure it was
being done correctly," says
Charles Russell, the second
general manager for The Red
and Black after the separation.
Before he was graduated,
Russell worked as a student
advertising representative for
The Red and Black from 1978 to
1980. During that time, he
served as a student
representative on the advisory
committee to consider the
paper's liberation from campus.
The 11-member committee,
headed by Bill Mendenhall,
associate dean of students, was
made up of a variety of
administrators, faculty and
students.
For student staff, chaos reigns
By Susan Hill and Clark Hubbard
A set of creaky stairs winds its way up to
the gray wood paneling of The Red and
Black's editorial offices downtown. Once
past the bathroom, otherwise known as the
features department, one enters the chaotic
world of a student rag, its walls
haphazardly decorated with posters and
clippings, its floors littered with notebooks
and newspaper, its reporters, editors and
photographers anxiously struggling to meet
the day's deadlines.
On the other side of the building, student
ad reps hustle in and out as they anxiously
return from trying to sell ad space to local
businesses. Since The Red and Black
receives no funds from the University and
is a free circulation paper, the ad
department, which is made up of about 18
students and an advertising director, is
responsible for financially supporting the
paper.
Much like professional newspapers, most
of the advertising representatives receive
most of or all of their salary based on a
commission. For the 1988-89 publishing
year, the advertising department produced
$646,434 in total revenue for the
■ newspaper. Since The Red and Black is a
non-profit corporation, any of that money
leftover after paying expenses is funneled
back into the paper.
Most agree that The Red and Black is a
microcosm of a daily metro paper — it is
even larger than many small-town papers.
But because of their schoolwork and class
schedules, student staffers don't lave the
luxury of a full workday to put out their
product — a newspaper with an estimated
16,000 circulation.
On the editorial side, reporters in sports,
news and entertainment start their work
around 1 or 2 p.m., putting out calls to
sources, covering events and typing stories
into a computer system. The Red and Black
has about 40 paid reporters and editors,
most of whom work at least 25 hours a
week. The newspaper also welcomes
contributing writers throughout the
quarter.
By 3:30 p.m., stories slated to go on
inside pages are in the initial stages of the
editing process, during which time they are
checked not only for errors in punctuation,
spelling and style, but also accuracy,
organization and writing quality.
At least three editors will see an inside
story. The final gatekeeper is the copy
editor, who designs the newspaper pages
and writes the story's headline. At least
four editors read front page stories, which
are not due in from the writers until 5:30
p.m. Meanwhile, photographers, who add
the visual side to many stories, are busy
developing film in a converted basement
room about the size of a broom-closet. Some
time during this chaos, the mysterious
figure of a cartoonist quietly slips in and
begins lampooning whatever catches his
fancy.
Front-page stories begin coming to the
final copy editor around 7 or 8 p.m. after
several budget meetings to determine their
length and importance. Downstairs, the
production department impatiently taps its
collective foot and waits for final versions of
the day's stories to come through the large,
rickety and slightly temperamental
mainframe computer (nicknamed "Claude")
and out of the laser printer.
From there, the hard copies are taken to
a paste-up board, where they are cut with
razors and physically stuck to the
cardboard page mock-ups with wax. The
copy editors then give the pasted-up pages
a final read, trying (often with painfully
limited success) to catch any errors before
they are viewed by the entire University.
Somewhere during all the fun, the
opinions page is completed and sent
downstairs to the production department.
Many do not understand that the signed
columns published on the opinions page are
those of the individuals writing the
columns and not necessarily those of the
entire staff of The Red and Black. Only the
unsigned editorials on the left side of the
opinions page are opinions endorsed by the
paper.
Final deadline for the last story on the
front page is 10 p.m. unless there are
special circumstances, such as a late-
breaking story or late sports event. Ideally,
the next day's edition of The Red and Black
is out the door by 10:30 or 11 p.m. and on its
way to the printing presses at the Athens
Banner-Herald facility on the far side of
town.
The Red and Black's writing coach
critiques the paper the next day, but his
role is that of an outside consultant, not
that of an adviser. The paper also employs
three full-time professionals — a general
manager, a production director and an
advertising director — to provide continuity
to the paper. At the top of the heap, a board
of directors makes business decisions and
selects the editor and managing editor.
However, students reign in the newsroom,
printing without fear of censorship — from
anyone.
Ah, the joy of independence.