2 december 2 010
A LUMNI@ DA ILYOR A NGE.COM
DO plans Feb. reunion weekend for anniversary celebration D
ear Alumni, In 1971, a group of Syracuse University students built the foundation for something special: an independent newspaper to serve the needs of the campus community. Forty years later, we still serve that need. There may not be protests stirring up campus, or radical moves for separation from the university, but one thing remains the same between The Daily Orange then and now: a group of students who love writing, reporting and informing. To celebrate 40 years of independence, we’ll host a weekend-long event Feb. 18 to 20. We’d like as many alumni as possible to attend. Here’s a brief breakdown of the plans: • A gathering at good old 744 Ostrom Ave. on
K ATHLEEN RONAYNE
IF YOU REUNITE
What: 40th anniversary celebration Where: Syracuse, N.Y. When: Feb. 18-20 How much: Priceless Friday night: This is the perfect time to catch up with old friends and meet the current staff. Plus, you’ll get a little history lesson just by looking at the walls. • A history of The D.O.: Think pictures and examples of the 1971 Daily Orange and the 2011 Daily Orange. We’re also planning a discussion about what it was like to go independent in 1971 and financially independent in 1991. • Lessons from alumni in the form of panel discussions and roundtables: What’s the industry like now? How can current staffers prepare?
managing things What were some of the most difficult or controversial decisions made during different periods at The Daily Orange? • Syracuse basketball, of course: Syracuse vs. Rutgers, 4:30 p.m. in the Carrier Dome. We secured a limited number of group tickets. • Sunday goodbye breakfast • We’d like to assign all current staffers a D.O. mentor to learn from, one on one. We’ll
take a break Saturday for lunch with mentors. We’ll dedicate this weekend to celebrating 40 years of something amazing. Regardless of the year you worked at The D.O., your former job here or if you still work in the industry, this weekend presents a chance for everyone to cherish one thing we’ll have in common for the rest of our lives: the experiences of this crazy place. If you’d like to attend, and we really hope you do, please e-mail alumni@dailyorange.com to RSVP. If you’re interested in being a mentor, let us know! We can’t wait to celebrate a fabulous 40th year with you. Kathleen Ronayne (’12) is the managing editor and a former asst. news editor of The Daily Orange. She’s searching for that one game-changing story that captures the power of this paper. If you’ve got some crazy idea that never ran and is still possible, contact her at editor@ dailyorange.com.
‘71 editorial director remembers campus upheaval, paper’s split from SU By Robert H. Tembeckjian Syracuse University and the nation were in constant turmoil 40 years ago. Protesting students shut down colleges across the country after Ohio National Guardsmen killed four anti-war students at Kent State University on May 4, 1970. At SU, a self-created student-strike committee camped out in the basement of Hendricks Chapel — the student center had not yet been built — and directed alternatives to businessas-usual, such as teach-ins, anti-war seminars, public policy debates and door-to-door community organizing. There were mass informational meetings on the Quad nearly every day. Social conventions were challenged, and rules constraining SU’s campus life eliminated: the 11 p.m. curfew for women, sharp time limits on opposite-sex dorm visitors and the one-footon-the-floor policy in the opposite sex’s room, which had made us all romantic acrobats. Students vigorously advocated for innovations that today are taken for granted, such as voting representation in the University Senate and internships for credit. In 1971, Chancellor John Corbally, whose calm, empathetic response to the 1970 student protest helped keep the campus peaceful, left after falling out of favor with the Board of Trustees over his support of a report finding racial discrimination in the vaunted SU foot-
photo credit left: barbara beck (1971); right: rick kopstein (2007) THEN AND NOW Robert Tembeckjian as editorial director in 1971 and today. ball program. Despite the eventual accomplishments of his successor, Melvin Eggers, many students regarded Corbally’s departure as a sign that Syracuse was not ready for progressive change in 1971. The D.O. seemed to adopt the era’s student mantra: If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Many readers regarded The D.O. as slanted toward student protesters. A new masthead logo appeared: a fist breaking a rifle. In 1970 and 1971, The D.O. undoubtedly gave university administrators heartburn. Mutual trust and respect were in short supply. Although The D.O. was a university publication, the administration tried to avoid responsibility for a libel suit against the paper. In spring
1971, Paula Fabian took over for Sam Hemingway as editor-in-chief and was subjected to enormous criticism for continuing along a path some considered countercultural. The university created a new publication, The Record, in part to disseminate “official” information The D.O. would not print. Smaller, vibrant student publications (The Dialog and The Promethean) competed with The D.O. A debate raged over what defined a campus newspaper. Could a university tolerate freedom of expression when that expression acerbically turned against it? Could a student newspaper published under the university’s imprimatur really be independent? Then, in October 1971, the three student newspapers audaciously banded together, renounced SU control and named Bob Heisler and Barbara Beck the consensus choices for editor-in-chief and managing editor of a now independent D.O. Heisler and Beck, joined by News Editor Jayson Stark, Features Editor Bruce Apar, Sports Editor Bob Herzog and myself as Editorial Director. We were too giddy and naïve to worry or appreciate the enormity of what had happened. Less than 1 percent of all college papers were independent. Money? It’ll come, just cover the stories. Another campus sit-in, denial of tenure to a talented teacher, a mess-up at health services, the war, civil rights. Heisler had us cover city politics because of their effect on the university.
We started calling women “Ms.” instead of “Miss” or “Mrs.” Somehow it worked. We rode a dilapidated red station wagon from East Adams Street to Manlius Publishing every night, where new “cold type” machines sometimes froze and the old linotype cranked out “slugs.” Business Manager Rich Turner routinely warned us that we were in the red, and we’d say cut more ad space for editorial. The paper would not have survived without Heisler’s deft management and Student Association support. For 20 years, SA underwrote a significant part of the operating budget, but that was not without its perils. Student leaders could be as prickly as university administrators when the focus of unflattering press attention turned on them. In 1991, another exhilarating chapter of D.O. independence was written when Editor-in-Chief Jodi Lamagna and the D.O. Board of Trustees disavowed SA support, declaring that a free press could not accept subsidies from a government it covered. In the nearly 20 years since, The D.O. has hewed to that policy, making us 40-year “ancients” exceedingly proud. Bob Tembeckjian was The Daily Orange’s editorial director from ‘71-72. Before joining the editorial staff, he wrote D.O. opinion pieces and served as class president and the spokesman for the Student Strike Committee during the 1970 protests. He is now the administrator for the N.Y. Commission on Judicial Conduct.
A HISTORY OF INDEPENDENCE MAY 1970 D.O. staff members raise enough money to print 10 issues in 11 days during campus protests against the Vietnam War.
1970 FEB. 17, 1971 SU administrators begin fending off responsibility for a $938,000 libel suit involving three D.O. editors. FEB. 19, 1971 Before a decision is made regarding responsibility of the libel suit, SU officials schedule elections for the paper’s next editor, without consulting D.O. staff. FEB. 22, 1971 The Student Assembly approves a new constitution and student advisory board for The D.O. that will elect future editors and oversee the paper’s budget, providing separate oversight from the administration’s Board of Publications. FEB. 23, 1971 A D.O. editorial declares the paper’s independence from the administration’s Board of Publications.
SUMMER 1970 The D.O.’s Summer Orange stops printing after it loses SU funding.
1980 FEB. 26, 1971 A front-page editorial announces Paula Fabian, elected by the Student Assembly D.O. Advisory Board, as the paper’s new editor. But it warns that administrators will soon oust her and install the Board of Publications’ choice for editor. (Fabian remained editor.)
positive action” in paying for the paper’s lawsuit.
APRIL 21, 1971 In a letter read at a University Senate meeting, SU’s attorney discourages the university’s financial support of The D.O.’s libel suit or general budget. Months earlier, USen voted to encourage administrators to give the paper legal assistance.
OCT. 21, 1971 SA’s Finance Board says it cannot justify spending a third of the undergraduate activity fee on campus newspapers, endangering the livelihood of all three campus newspapers. SA will grant one paper $25,000, a fraction of The D.O.’s annual production cost.
MAY 19, 1971 An editorial by SU alumni encourages contributing to the “Daily Orange Defense Fund” instead of an SU fundraiser. An editor’s note says SU has still taken “no
OCT. 26, 1971 “Vol. 1,” the new D.O., prints its first issue, representing the three combined staffs with Bob Heisler at the helm.
OCT. 19, 1971 As SA tightens its publications budget, representatives from The D.O., The Promethean and The Dialog meet to discuss combining for a new daily.