2/02/2016

Memories of Campus Journalism

Yesterday, the first day of the so-called love month, I did nothing but teach my college editorial staff how to do interesting newsletter layout.

As the adviser of our university paper, the look and the content—and attitude—of the publication fall on my lap.

It is an exciting assignment, something I took on with no question asked. But with this job come coaching and mentoring, tasks that require gargantuan patience. Also, I need to remember how it is done by going years back; I need to pluck from my college memoir of campus journalism what can be taught to hard-core millennials today. 

Aside from their writing talents, my chosen editors (who had to pass a rigorous test), have zero knowledge of newspaper writing. 

Words like headline, subhead, ears, nose for news, news angle, column inches, page jump, tombstone, etc. are as foreign to them as a typewriter.   

What to do?

I guess that's why there is a love month. It's when you painstakingly teach the ABC's of a job you used to love in college so they, too, will love it.

As one of only a dozen, chosen from among thousands to write for our prestigious campus newspaper, and one who will always look to those wonder semesters as part of her life's peak moments, I received grace in many unmeasured column inches. I was smitten by campus journalism.  

Journalism would also become the venue for meeting my future husband (maybe I should blog about that, too, one day soon). 

Memories of a job so loved then, should be shared—and passed on.  

So, I now move from a header of hope . . .
to a header of love:

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