Funny, but every time I think of student newspapers, I think of food.
Well, not food exactly—former food might be a better description.
Example: A few years ago, I was assigned to follow the production of a college newspaper on the East Coast for 24 hours. When I stepped into the newspaper office, deep in the labyrinth of a musty, aged administration building, the first thing I saw was a gnarled, greenish clump of food substance sitting on a nearby shelf. On the wall above it, somebody had scrawled “rice pudding” in purple magic marker. The first student reporter I met was seated at his computer with a bag of Doritos between his knees and a freshly chewed wad of gum stuck to the corner of his terminal. (And he was barefoot, but that’s another story.) On tables nearby, half-eaten pizza and french fries, age unknown, awaited the next courageous staff member needing a snack. And I thought to myself, “Gee, this looks familiar.”
It took me back to my own days as a student reporter. Even when things were going well, that is, when equipment was working and nobody had been threatened with suspension, we seemed to stretch every issue of the paper into an all-night ordeal requiring copious amounts of soda and Pop-Tarts. One night, in the throes of deadline hell, we broke the monotony by attaching a days-old slice of bread to the wall and throwing darts at it to see who would be the first to break off a piece.
Not that inventing amusements using discarded food was the only edifying activity of a student journalist. But it was one of the fun ones.
I’m happy to report not much has changed. Student newspapers are still places where irreverence is acted out, where playfulness is the rule and where you eat at your own risk. And where, occasionally, would-be journalists become grown-up journalists.
It’s hard to know which means more to students and alumni who have peopled the Stanford Daily over the years: the work they did or the middle-of-the-night adventures produced by too little sleep or too much caffeine. It’s likely they have forgotten most of the stories they worked on, but not the esprit de corps of the staff members. There are no friendships quite like those forged over breakfast at 4 a.m. after a 12-hour jag on the copy desk.
The Daily is important for many reasons, most of which are related to well-subscribed notions: that a student newspaper offers an outlet for student expression, a conduit for lively debate and a repository of institutional history. But it also is a strong and enduring community of souls whose shared experience transcends generation and geography. The Daily is its own world.
Joannie Fischer goes deep into Daily lore in “Read All About It”. Her story not only chronicles some interesting accomplishments (did you know the Daily contributed an important precedent to First Amendment law?) but also reveals the resilience and endurance of an institution that is nearly as old as the University itself.
The romantic clichés about bleary-eyed, idealistic young reporters banging out stories likely to annoy administrators have some truth to them. Over the years, the Daily has been both watchdog and puppy dog, pest and provocateur, an agent for change and an object of derision. It’s been surprisingly good and alarmingly bad, truly profound and utterly obnoxious.
What has remained consistent is the commitment of the students to the enterprise and the affection they have for the experience long after they’ve left the Farm. Seldom praised, often scorned, student journalists mostly rely on each other for support and encouragement, and together trudge their way through their own brand of investigative science. Say what you will about the results, none can deny that their Daily deeds have taught them some of the essentials for success—including a thick skin, a stiff spine and a strong stomach.
You can reach Kevin at jkcool@stanford.edu.
