Jeff Pearlman Not Renewed As Student Advisor To College Newspaper

Struggled for the right title to this thread. Pretty amazing story written by Jeff about how he was not asked back as adviser to Manhattanville College Student Newspaper.

Certainly makes the administration look small.

http://www.jeffpearlman.com/i-was-a-college-newspaper-advisor/

 

Sad story. So typical of college administrators, though. You'd think the fact that that students are getting jobs and great internships might mean something to the higher-ups.

Colleges should embrace criticism, not whitewash it.
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Sorry, Jeff.

 

He should get the students truly interested in it to start a website and write the stuff for that they would have for the school's newspaper.

 

He did: " I felt like I got over it. I really did. My class started its own online newspaper, The Pub Wrap, and that was fulfilling. I was told only my students could contribute; that it couldn’t compete with Touchstone. “Compete?” I said. “This isn’t a contest …”

 

I want to chime in and say that, as a college student, this piece needed to be written. We're doing our best to keep the newspaper going, but the administration seemingly goes out of its way to try and break us down.

It's one thing to give a PR-like response to a question, or decline comment. Not allowing us to start a website for our paper (which our advisor eventually helped turn around) and trying to cut stories from our paper is absolutely ridiculous. It's unfortunate that at such a small school, we're very dependent on the admin's money. It almost makes me regret my decision to come here.

With that said, it pushes students to find writing opportunities outside of our school paper. Is the administration not punishing its own students trying to learn journalism, though? I loved this story by Pearlman. Very relevant, and I'm sure it's like this at more than one or two schools.

 

What a sad and depressing read. This kind of "control the message" crap is all too common at too many institutions. Sad.

 

The same thing could be said about a lot of professional papers all over the country.

 

Pearlman pretty much said that in his last paragraph:

"What hurts most (and what, I suppose, inspires me to write this) is that this sort of stuff is going on everywhere. Journalism is, undeniably, under attack. Newspapers are closing. Corporate entities are stifling free press; colleges and universities are cracking down on student-generated publications. We, as a nation, are increasingly comfortable with the idea of limited voice.

It’s a dangerous path.

One, come semester’s end, I no longer want part of."

 

I followed Jeff's teaching travails on FB. He was doing a great job.

IF you're reading this Jeff, you did a great job.

Stay with the kids though. You don't need to be tied to the school to keep teaching them. Meet once a week with any of them who want to meet, at a coffee shop or Ben's on 38th, wherever, and keep mentoring them. You know a few will show up.

Keep teaching.

 

Interesting stuff. Let this be a silent lesson to any journalist who worries too much about the PR of a team/entity/business/industry that they cover. Journalists often do. It's not your job to tell the people you cover what to say and how to say it. It's trickled down over the years.

Pearlman landed those kids some pretty impressive internships for a paper that came out every two weeks and, I suspect, was a fraction as good as many campus newspapers are daily.

 

Pearlman tweets:

I've been hired to teach sportswriting next fall at SUNY Purchase. Pretty psyched. School is committed to journalism.

 

They're smart to hire him, if he can duplicate the same kind of internship placements. That stuff rarely correlates to skill.