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East Carolina fires student media adviser after paper ran photos of streaker

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Steak Snabler, Jan 5, 2012.

  1. Matt Stephens

    Matt Stephens Well-Known Member

    To be fair, our EIC then is now an investigative reporter at the Sarasota paper.
     
  2. jr/shotglass

    jr/shotglass Well-Known Member

    Looking back, I do believe that is the way things worked when I was on a student newspaper.

    But looking at it now, in black and white, it strikes me that this particular First Amendment protection is an accident waiting to happen.

    Aspiring journalists, early in their training, need some sort of safety net. This eliminates it.
     
  3. Matt Stephens

    Matt Stephens Well-Known Member

    Also, to be fair, that F Bush, coupled with investigative stories that led to university predident being fired, led to the university making our paper no longer an official part of the school and us almost being bought by Gannett. Now the paper is its own company that leases office space in the student union. So there were consequences.
     
  4. BurnsWhenIPee

    BurnsWhenIPee Well-Known Member

    So exactly what was Mr. Isom getting paid $57K a year to do? Sit idly by with his hands tied and nod whenever these students made any decision, no matter how stupid the decision may be? Is he in charge of hiring the student-journalists? If so, he obviously failed in that part of his job.

    I'd say in most cases, an adviser can get away with being very hands-off. But when the worst of ideas comes up (like printing a cock photo on the front page of the paper), he can't sit back and do nothing. If that's "prior restraint" and against the First Amendment, it's fine by me.

    I see an adviser the same way I see a driving instructor in one of those driver's ed cars that has a brake pedal on both sides. The instructor lets the teenager drive the car, but he has the power to stop the car in case things got out of hand. If Isom was that driving instructor, he'd have been sitting in the backseat playing on his iPhone while the student driver drove into a brick wall.
     
  5. 93Devil

    93Devil Well-Known Member

    This is 100 percent correct.

    When I was in the classroom, I used to run a link to the online edition of The State Press (http://www.statepress.com) on some type of webpage I had at the time. One day I noticed that something seemed a little off, and then I realized it was one of those "last edition we will do" things that seniors like to do. Well the editor decided that it would be fun to throw in a ton of fbombs and curse words in his final column. After reading it, I unlinked The State Press and told him in an email that I could not link the The State Press anymore because of the column he wrote.

    As expected, I got the "lighten up" response back.

    College trains you for the real world, and being named editor of a college paper should mean that some people think you are responsible enough to know better than to put a prick or curse in the paper.
     
  6. Matt Stephens

    Matt Stephens Well-Known Member

    At least in our case, advisor didn't hire. I was hired as a staff writer by an SE. When I took the SE job, I interviewed with the EIC and then I hired my staff. If the advisor starts making content calls, then that person is no longer an advisor, that person is an editor.
     
  7. We'll have to agree to disagree. That sounds like you're asking him to be a high school newspaper teacher or maybe a newspaper workshop instructor. (And while I understand your drivers-ed analogy, that seems like the definition of prior restraint). That's not the role -- legally or professionally -- of an adviser to an independent student media operation at a public university. You might think it *should* be, but it's not.
     
  8. Stitch

    Stitch Active Member

    Is Isom supposed to babysit the students? That's not part of his job description. An adviser's job is not to stand back and say nothing, or give piss-poor advice.

    College Media Advisers state an adviser is a teacher. It's No. 2 on the list. Giving advice is No. 1.

    http://www.cma.cloverpad.org/Default.aspx?pageId=1116916

     
  9. Matt Stephens

    Matt Stephens Well-Known Member

    Still, not an editor.
     
  10. Stitch

    Stitch Active Member

    You're missing the point. An adviser can get fired for giving poor advice. That's the issue.
     
  11. Piotr Rasputin

    Piotr Rasputin New Member

    It's always wise for an advisor to inform their students regarding the options present in a situation like this, and the potential consequences of the decisions made.

    It's up to the students to be smarter and more professionally mined than "Yayyy!!!!! that naked guy's manhood is flapping in the breeze!!!! Whhhooooo!!!!! Dirty photo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

    I love the EIC's statement about how readers deserved a photo that was a true depiction, or some such.

    Yeah, I'll call a very large pile of bullshit on that one.
     
  12. Matt Stephens

    Matt Stephens Well-Known Member

    Where does it say he told them to run the photos and do so as is?
     
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