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Samuel Autman reads The ˽Ƶ in the newsroom

First Person by Samuel Autman

First Person

is a regular feature of ˽Ƶ Magazine, which is published three times a year.

From spring 2003 and periodically until 2017 I had the pleasure and social treacheries of serving as the faculty adviser for The ˽Ƶ. The student journalists could listen to or ignore my input. University colleagues didn’t want me eavesdropping, knowing the content of their conversations could land in the newspaper. It’s a tightrope walk only student media advisers understand.

My fondest memories are of the musty, grimy newsroom in the Pulliam Center for Contemporary Media, where piles of newspapers created a fire hazard. Each day I passed a mini shrine to Bernard Kilgore, the famed managing editor of The Wall Street Journal who got his start at The ˽Ƶ, and through a doorway that provided an entry to a new university life for me, as I stepped away from the world of daily journalism.

Lili Wright, now emerita English professor, and I had been colleagues at The Salt Lake Tribune. Upon learning I had resigned from The San Diego Union-Tribune, she invited me to serve as a visiting consultant to The ˽Ƶ in fall 2002. When she was on sabbatical, I substituted for what was to be one semester, spring 2003.

As a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism, I was amazed by what hungry ˽Ƶ student journalists accomplished without the structures of a traditional journalism program. Students could take newswriting or advanced reporting through the English Department, but those courses were not prerequisites for writing for The ˽Ƶ. Any student could learn by doing.

I wrote about binge drinking on college campuses when I was a higher education reporter in San Diego. Then, when I was The ˽Ƶ’s new adviser, the Board of Trustees expressed concerns about ˽Ƶ’s boozy culture.

Andrew Tangel, a senior in the Class of 2003, got a hold of the board’s one-night drinking tab at a local bar: nearly $1,000 in less than two hours. To underscore his reportage, The ˽Ƶ ran a photo of the receipt. The board was not happy, but I call that good journalism. Andrew’s reporting won a first-place investigative award from the Indiana Collegiate Press Association and shaped the team coverage that won a first-place Society of Professional Journalists “Mark of Excellence” Region 5 award for in-depth reporting. Andrew now is a reporter for The Wall Street Journal.

After that semester concluded, President Robert Bottoms asked me to return to ˽Ƶ as a visiting instructor, teaching newswriting and advance reporting. Wright and I alternately advised The ˽Ƶ.

I suggested a student reporter and photographer do a ride-along with the Indiana Excise Police at Purdue University to document the aggressive tactics the state was using but not run into the students’ ˽Ƶ friends. Jennifer Anderson ’06 and Adie Verla ’04 won a first-place feature award from the Society of Professional Journalists for the work, and Michael Morris ’07, now an investigative journalist for the Houston Chronicle, also won a top sportswriting award that year.

While I figured out advising as I went, I saw scores of students become journalists. Ellen Kobe ’13 is at CNN+. Her brother, David Kobe ’17, went to Fox News and later got a master’s in cultural affairs reporting from New York University. Brooks Hepp ’19 became a staff writer for the Battle Creek Enquirer. Brock E.W. Turner ’17 became a reporter for WFIU, Indiana Public Media in Bloomington.

In 2009, Margaret Sutherlin, a quiet student I had in class who had written for The ˽Ƶ,asked if I’d write a recommendation for her to submit an entry for the Indiana Collegiate Press contest.

When Margaret made the top 10 and invited me to the awards dinner in Indianapolis, of course I went. Student journalists and advisers from big journalism programs were at our table. I thought they were going to mop it up.

When the announcer said, “and the winner of the first-place prize is Margaret Sutherlin from ˽Ƶ,” Margaret put her hand over her heart. I looked at her and said, “Holy s---, Margaret, you won!” Now she works at Bloomberg News.

It wasn’t about the awards, but the awards indicated that we were doing something right at ˽Ƶ and The ˽Ƶ.

Still, as I became absorbed into the campus culture and got tenure, the stories that made it into the newspaper often were about colleagues I saw daily. It was, in a lot of ways, thornier than any of my professional newspaper days.

I stepped off The ˽Ƶ tightrope after more than a decade, but I’m grateful to have been an adviser for Indiana’s oldest college newspaper. It provided the doorway to my new life in higher education, and I got to touch scores of student journalists along the way.

Autman is an associate professor of English.

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