DO Alumni Newsletter, December 2010

Page 1

744 Ostrom Ave. Syracuse, N.Y. 13210

DECEMBER

INSIDE

40 never felt so good

Check out a timeline of The D.O.’s independence battles. Pages 2 and 3

In the spotlight Three Daily Orange alumni are making news around the country. Page 5

Show me the money A list of our generous donors. Page 7

Laugh it off You know this job was fun on occasion. There is still plenty on the walls to remind us of it all. Page 8

ALUMNI NEWSLETTER

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T H E I N D E P E N D E N T S T U D E N T N E W S PA P E R O F S Y R AC U S E , N.Y.

From the editor’s desk

Treasures prompt staff to reconnect

The Daily Orange staff is planning a 40th anniversary celebration for Feb. 18-20. Page 2

If I could turn back time

2010

K ATIE McINERNE Y

BRIT TNE Y DAVIES

P

I

copy deadline?

ounding echoed through the halls of 744 Ostrom Ave. during production of the 2010 Graduation Guide. Fresh from Faegan’s, the outgoing editor-in-chief and an assistant photo editor tested screwdrivers and any other tools they could find. Their minds were made up: The management office filing cabinet would open that night. Since Bob Heisler and The Daily Orange’s independent rebirth, management teams end their terms by signing the filing cabinet’s exterior. With its key lost in the turnover of D.O. generations, someone locked the cabinet in the early 2000s. Its contents became more of a mystery each semester. After several attempts, tool combinations and expletives, Will Halsey, the assistant photo editor, forced each drawer open. Inside, Halsey and Meredith Galante, the outgoing editor-in-chief, found letters of intent addressed to the 1996-2001 management teams, a 55-page D.O. memoir, and a dozen or so posters of Rob Howard proclaiming, “College is a sham.” They found special editions, including The D.O.’s 25th independence anniversary and SU’s 125th birthday, and reprints of the 1903 issue that

SEE DAVIES PAGE 4

meredith galante | editor-in-chief emeritus WILL HALSEY, a former assistant photo editor and a 2010 SU graduate, forces open the management office filing cabinet in May. It was locked sometime in the early 2000s.

such a chief

spend most of my time in a single office furnished with a broken filing cabinet, a dirty plaid couch and computers from the turn of the millennium — not glamorous by any means. But the office has one redeeming factor: I’m surrounded by caricatures of former editors and their memories — these are, of course, the famed ducks. I consider these ducks my biggest motivation. The names I recognize from old mastheads and bylines from publications across the world show me why I devote all my time to this paper. My name is Katie McInerney, and I am the editor-in-chief of The Daily Orange. I’m a junior newspaper journalism major and am wrapping up my third semester on staff. I previously served as presentation director. The managing editor (and essentially, the other half of my brain) is Kathleen Ronayne, a junior newspaper journalism major and former assistant news editor. We feel honored to work in management, and I hope that you’ll follow our staff’s work as we strive to break barriers and publish more dynamic content than we’ve seen in years. I have a happy announcement to make: After a profitable advertising year, we’ve saved enough money to pay off our last installment of the lawsuit. Finding the money for this SEE MCINERNEY PAGE 4

Alumni support preserves paper’s legacy, ensures future

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n many ways, The Daily Orange is much more than a newspaper. It’s an organization that provides students a real-world outlet to cut their teeth in journalism, advertising, art and design. It’s the only publication on campus with the reach and authority to make student work truly matter to the community. And it’s a place where we’ve all built friendships and gained experience that has profoundly improved our lives and

careers. There’s one way The D.O. is just like a newspaper, though: For the past few years, it’s been going out of business. The D.O. is tethered to the same outdated business model that has torpedoed countless publications, and we can’t wait for the industry to innovate or for the economy to turn around. We need to change the way The D.O. does business to ensure it’s here to help the next genera-

tion of students the same way it helped every one of us. The future of this organization isn’t about business, and we shouldn’t rely on an ever-changing roster of busy students or a motley crew of daytime business staff to crack the code of newspaper profitability. In fact, the ideal business model for The D.O. looks a lot more like Syracuse University’s than The PostStandard’s. We should see The D.O. as a

nonprofit foundation for student journalism, one with its own income-generating power that’s backed up by a cash-flow cushion provided by the people whose lives it has meaningfully changed. The new D.O. will have the funding to give students a more valuable experience than ever, and the editors will have the freedom to innovate, experiment and produce journalism that makes us all SEE HOWARD PAGE 4


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DO Alumni Newsletter, December 2010 by The Daily Orange - Issuu