The first Friday of October - it marked a week and one day after the Presidential Debates had riled the University of Miami into a limelit, fast-forward fiesta of camera cables, perky correspondents with their bored ominous mic-hands, and partisan, er, American colors. The feeling of an epic, groundbreaking occurrence was still present, but by that day, it was as if the School of Communication was consciously running off a placebo.
A Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker laying on a desk, at once busy and exhausted in its cluttered pseudo-seriousness, the after-burger comedown of politico-tainment, and priceless publicity had met the looming Open Water esque scenario that George W. Bush was indeed about to be reelected into a very heavy future. The pessimists and Republican jock-cocks were out in full-force, the oh-shit lottery tilted by the very daunting possibility. It was all a bit much to handle for everyone (John Kerry's first unanimous victory over a ball of thread from Texas had lost its luster) and certainly taking a toll on UM's aloof Director of Journalism.
Now he evinced the thick, ascetic growth of an uncharacteristic beard, but an assured grasp of the daily news stream was not affected. We took our seats across from his desk in the quaint office and he proceeded to pull out a dog-eared paperback of 1984. "I assume you guys have read this?" For the record, sure, we nodded. "It's quite pertinent to what's going on right now you might want to use it for your story." Suddenly it was 610 AM, and after that, a turn of the dial to some playful, furious hating on Fox News to pet now-settling nerves down to a murmur.
Besides attending Dr. Splichal's Media Law class - a humdrum, changeless course of recitation and a requisite for journalism majors that had long ago gained a certain cult-like status amongst COM students for its quirky, random non sequiturs (like a theory on the capitalism of ideas supported by the triumph of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and a confession to perpetually mistaking the "the Murrays," Eddie and Bill) - there had been few sightings of Dr. Splichal and even rarer bytes of correspondence over the preceding three years. Over those said years we were reporters, assistant editors and eventually editors at The Miami Hurricane , UM's official campus newspaper.
Also, over those years, two of which countless hours were spent dedicatedly preparing the semiweekly paper's arts and entertainment section (eventually the section was titled Life & Art, placing further distance from "entertainment," which was never the section's bag), we had seen Splichal no more than once in the office - and that may as well have been a bloodshot-induced apparition. Eventually, his absence became game for depressed-sounding two a.m. fodder in the 'pape's office, because Dr. Splichal, according to the publication's masthead, was the senior adviser, a paid position.
Now, this detail is not placed here to fulfill a sob story. The last thing a college editor needs is an anal-retentive faculty member breathing down stiffened necks who are churning out late night type, but it is an observation that plays into a much larger, harsher realization incriminating and encompassing not only the journalism program at UM and the astoundingly dense La-La-Land incompetence that encapsulates an otherwise sharply configured, modern Frances L. Wolfson Building, but also the slow pull of all collegiate journalism out to sea while lots of cash is beached, and the malnourished runoff that ends up clogging Miami's grossly ignored and undermanned port(s) for serious news media. Do we even need to mention the worsening Botox botched PR-strains of media named after roads on South Beach?
We weren't in Splichal's office that morning to catch-up, to pick-up underwhelming recommendations or to tie up chummy loses ends; Omar had already graduated, I was in the balance of completing a neglected second major (my "biological child" being journalism). Our days and nights at The Hurricane were long over, but we were seeking answers from this man, who didn't seem to practice the very ethics and flaunt the backbone that he preached, spell-checked and wrote about in academic texts. Palm trees can fall in the Happy Days abyss of cell-phone-banality that shimmers so haphazardly and humorously in UM's daily biodome and no one hears them. We felt he had let the only publication he allegedly advised and still advises fall to pieces at the hands of an election system that is, simply, a fucking joke, complete with a giant Iron Arrow through its deaf ears.
"My biggest concern dates back to 9-11, and the way the media, collectively inany case, rolled over. Go back and look to the events leading up to the invasionof Iraq and look at what we know now. Many of those things should have been andcould have been fused out and discovered by journalists; that there's no justificationfor thousands of our military to be over there, many of whom are dead, and thepress sat on its hands and allowed itself to be used by an administration insome cases. There just wasn't the skepticism that should have existed."
This is Dr. Splichal's answer to whether he has qualms with the current state of journalism. His critical eye is certainly on the prize - flew in from Miami Beach BOAC, didn't get to bed last night.
In early December of 2003, Omar Sommereyns and I resigned from our positions as editors at The Miami Hurricane, after Editor-in-Chief Brian Poliakoff was finally whisked off after not one, but two shorthanded elections by the UM Board of Publications. Ardent recommendations, warnings and ethical postulants editorialized and vocalized feverishly by the newspaper's senior staff were disregarded, but not entirely. A last resort cover story published in The Hurricane on Nov. 21, 2003 following the first election extensively detailed the detrimental conflicts of interest, ones already expressed vocally by several staff members to Dr. Splichal, pre-election: Jorge Arauz, the news editor of The Miami Hurricane, was also serving as the Student Government representative on the board.
Entitled "The Miami Hurricane Needs to Declare Independence," the exposure and interest stirred (it had, at the time, far surpassed the hits of any article ever published on The Hurricane web site in its history) lead the board to seriously consider the conflict, but not the core conflict. News Editor Jorge Arauz was replaced on the board, but with yet another Student Government representative (Michael Ershowsky), and a second election was rushed into action (apparently the said core criticism and fact that an SG representative had a vote in the election of editor-in-chief was permanently overlooked).
Exactly why and how Jorge Arauz came to hold that position and the blatant contradiction and negligence it represented was also moot. For outside readers, I'm sure this is a lot to digest and invest time in, but how a news editor, any news editor, can report objectively on a government - collegiate or otherwise - while representing the same government as its sole representative (not just on the board, but in general) is not journalistic algebra.
The incumbent Brian Poliakoff once again lost to the candidate who perhaps represented exactly what many of board members and their overseers had always hoped for: A PR-savvy, desperate-to-please answer-person of questionable academic, journalistic and ethical standing named Leigha Taber.
Sure, uproars at college newspapers are practically part of the long-going, romanticized rabble-rouser tradition at most national universities, but this particular case snowballed into a much harsher problem. Most of these student newspaper hoo-has make only a meager yelp if any and disappear. Then there are the rare cases that are taken up loudly by the ACLU and...disappear. But it is incredibly odd how few of these cases receive a thorough and open examination, from the peculiar politics and processes involved, to the reverberating and scary details that seem to surface in the real world so often now.
But parallels between such incidents may not just be coincidence; surely, from the collegiate J-school womb to the professional press jungle, something is going unchecked. From true insider's experience (and yes, it's the viewpoint of two 20-somethings), the conducting of numerous interviews with a hierarchy of the characters involved in this quizzical web, and the requisite research and fact-checking needed for such an extensive piece (and really, what other Miami outlet would/could do it?), comes a conclusion: The University of Miami's Journalism Program seems to have developed prime conditions to spring a full head of unknowing lice into your local and national newspapers and magazines (surprise: not just your television).
Chapter 1: Circling in a Golf Cart with the Norm, Carefree Chairman of the Board
While it does generate revenue from ad dollars, The Miami Hurricane is not an independent newspaper. Rather, as it is distributed for free, the publication receives funding from the university in order to survive and is "organized" in a certain manner by a remote board of publications that seldom has interaction with the staff of the newspaper. It's safe to say that most neophytes on crew are hardly even aware of this system.
Now, it may seem that such a board holds an innocuous, insignificant position vis-à-vis the daily functioning of the newspaper (the latter being managed by the student employees of the publication and, theoretically, by the Senior Adviser Sigman Splichal). But it is this very board that makes, once a semester, the most vital decision concerning the preservation of integrity that postures this student newspaper as an ethically-operating and journalistically-sound institution: Electing the editor-in-chief.
Pause for a moment here and ask yourself, as rationally as possible, how the editor-in-chief of a student newspaper, should be elected:
-By a team of experts in the field brought in from the university's journalism department?
-By a sole journalism faculty member who, ostensibly, would have the savoir-faire to provide a shrewd judgment about the position?
-Or by a board of publications composed of sundry members, the majority of whom have little journalistic experience (including a Student Government representative, a Dean of Students and an advertising/public relations professor)?
Not all collegiate publications have this "board system" and several across the nation are actual independent enterprises (e.g. University of Florida's Independent Florida Alligator ). Obviously, there are financial advantages to getting support from a university. But, for some odd reason, the School of Communication at UM and the head of its journalism program do not see The Miami Hurricane, the student newspaper (not news letter ), as a legitimate and genuine journalistic entity that could serve the student community as a progressive, enlightening and profound source of information. Rather, as Dr. Splichal put it during our interview in October, The Miami Hurricane is merely a "student activity" that any student can join, like the Bowling Club or the Ethics Society (irony intended).
When asked whether or not he believes more journalism faculty should be included on the board or at least involved in the process of electing an editor-in-chief every semester, his answer was surprisingly ambiguous and smug.
"The Board could be constituted in a hundred different ways. The problem is thatit would get too big. But, yes, I would like to have a professional outside journaliston it."
What's more, Student Government serves as an intermediary between The Hurricane and the funding it is allotted via the university. And thus it also has a member on the board, as aforementioned, to represent the "student community." In the case of the election in December of 2003, no one on the board seemed to notice the conflict, until The Hurricane claimed (with a dash of jest) the severe oversight to be "as obvious as chimps-stricken-with-Ebola." The election results were appealed, and a reelection was called. But, you can begin to see the depth of understanding of the board of publications, as it immediately brought on another member appointed by student government. Posing the analogy of having a politician help decide who becomes editor of a newspaper - specifically, The Miami Herald - Dr. Splichal became anxious:
"Look at The Miami Herald, look at who's on the Board of Directors at Knight-Ridder, take a look sometime. See who they are.They are not a bunch of prominent journalists."
What's that supposed to mean? Does that justify possible flaws in the election process of The Hurricane 's editor-in-chief?
Dr. Splichal didn't really elaborate on that comment, but once again rationalized that "all kinds of different systems" can be applied to a college newspaper, and that, besides advocating for an outside journalist to come on board, he didn't have any dissonance with the current system. Sadly enough, the link that exists between the School of Communication and The Miami Hurricane is rather tenuous - according to Splichal, the school just doesn't consider the student newspaper to be an essential outlet for students enrolled in the journalism program.
"The newspaper doesn't belong to the students that want to pursue journalism," he said. "Frankly,my interaction with some of the administration on the board gives me great confidencein their understanding of student journalism, and the needs and desires of theuniversity community, which consists of both student and faculty. The Hurricane isa 'community newspaper'."
Dr. Splichal, the chief journalistic voice on board and at the university, has one vote out of 10 towards the election of the editor-in-chief. That's not much pull though, is it?
In October 2004, we also conducted an interview with Norman Parsons, the chairman of the board. The fact that Norm Parsons was the Director of Wellness and Recreation for the Wellness Center, UM's contempo gym facility, was not unknown. But it had caused us to do a helluva double-take in the second week of November 2002, when Mr. Parsons had alerted Dr. Splichal and our then Editor-in-Chief Jordan Rodack that he wanted to have a little cautionary chat with the editors of Life & Art. At that time, little did Hunter and I know that we were going to an office in the campus gym, but we entered the pristine complex sleepy-eyed in polo shirts with our editor-in-chief and senior adviser, as the first rush of students were in the heat of their early morning routines.
Accompanied by our Senior Adviser Sigman Splichal and Editor-in-Chief Jordan Rodack, the two Life & Art Editors were summoned to Parsons' office for vague reasons. Things were full swing then, the section was growing and we were hyped on the prospect of fostering a true, culturally-relevant art and entertainment section for an open-eyed college crowd in a booming city.
But, as much as the conversation was smoothed-over by student/faculty/administrative diplomacy, we started to see a clear uncertainty concerning our journalistic future at The Hurricane, eyes darting between our senior adviser and the golf-themed decorations on the wall as the chairman of the board babbled something about "tentacles" and angry readers. Turned out that some faculty and well-heeled alumni (those so-called "tentacle" endpoints) weren't too happy with the content of the Life & Art section, deemed graphic and not of interest to the student body at large "(feature interview with MTV-performance artist/former UM-student Steve-O and neo-cabaret musician Peaches)" as had been reported by Student Government. We accentuated the fact that The Miami Hurricane was a student newspaper produced for the students, not the alumni (they have Miami - a UM-published magazine for parents and alumni) and that there had been scarce evidence of a disgruntled student body, including that offered by Mr. Parsons.
But the alumni and other such constituencies were seemingly more important. The finger was being pointed at us. We were being warned, so to speak. The university and its benefactors didn't want a provocative or relevant arts and entertainment section that reflected both the campus and the metropolitan precociousness and pertinent cultural resource around us. No, no, The Hurricane was to become a flowery, predictable "Campus Living" info sheet for the school. Why were we even here? Who the hell was this guy and why was our senior adviser/academic adviser/professor and the director of journalism being so easily rolled over into silence?
Back at the second meeting, Parsons repeatedly emphasized that neither he nor the board get involved in "the day-to-day operations of the paper."
"I read The Hurricane as an interested reader," he said. "I don't read it as a critique or as an analyzer. That's not really my role asa member of the board. That's up to the adviser of The Hurricane."
Ironically, Dr. Splichal's assessed the newspaper this way: "Some of it is very good, some of it I'm not impressed with. The Hurricane is a student-run newspaper. I'm on call, I'll answer any questions, I'll read anything they ask me to read, I'll talk to them about any subject they want me to talk about, but they do not have to come to me for advice. [...] My philosophy is hands off."
We spoke to Parsons about journalism's current state and what we thought were paradoxes and conflicts of interest in the electoral process of The Hurricane's editor-in-chief. He didn't seem bothered by the board's mechanism and didn't see ethical problems with an SG rep having a vote, explaining that he assumed the reason Student Government wanted a board seat was to have a student to "represent the undergraduates - not from a political view, but from the representation of the students in general."
But that's bullshit innit, this is student government, an organization in which many members have daily contact and develop long rapports with faculty? We were just being run around in pointless circles as though we were on Mr. Parsons' golf cart. By the way, on that day Parsons could not name any editor on staff besides Leigha Taber, not even the current news editor, nor could he even recall who exactly was on the board, especially members with a significant background in journalism: "Well, we just brought in this guy from The Herald, uh, what's his name...?" [Assistant Journalism Professor Samuel Terilli]
"There are many people in positions in the world today that need to represent many different constituencies while they come from a particular consistency," he added. "So you have to make the leap of faith to [believe] that the SG rep can also represent all the students."
Okay Norm.
Without really comprehending what that had to do with an SG rep having a vote for the editor, we then alleged that Brian Poliakoff, the former editor-in-chief, had been dismissed (i.e., he hadn't been reelected) because he ran a certain amount of content that the university didn't approve of in the Life & Art section. More so, we explained, there seemed to be a strong case that Leigha Taber, the newly appointed editor was elected thanks to, among other reasons, a tight-knit friendship with the school's Vice President of Student Affairs, Dr. Patricia Whitely (the first friend listed on Ms. Taber's page on TheFaceBook.com - a massively popular Friendster-like social network online).
Dr. Whitely appoints the board's chairman. She declined an in-person interview via her assistant numerous times over the last four months. Mr. Parsons just offered, about The Hurricane 's performance, "From a technical standpoint, you'll have to check with Sig on that. [But] the paper seems to be doing fine from my point of view. It's covered the campus issues and the leaders have been very satisfactory."
We ended up simply asking - just it throwing out there, generically - what he thought might be some of the major difficulties facing collegiate journalism today, and Parsons, without a flinch, replied:
"Collegiate journalism? I don't know enough about the broad scope of collegiate journalism. I don't know enough about it to talk about specific obstacles."
Is it us? Shouldn't the University of Miami, the School of Communication and the UM Journalism Program devote a bit more time, thought and organization to its premiere student publication?
Up Next:
Chapter 2: "I'm Telling You Guys, You Really Don't Want To Do This."
The Reign of Leigha Taber: Close Encounters with Student Government and Getting Prolonged Paid Tuition For a Job Well Undone.
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