Just wondering

Me: Victor, what are you doing?

Victor: I am wearing a postmodern hat.

Friday night thesis fun

I'm not the slightest bit embarrassed to be working on my thesis this Friday evening, which is an indication that I haven't been working on it as diligently as I should. Also I know no one reads this. Also I'm not by myself, so it's not that bad.

Anyway, here's a bit from a book aptly called "Press Photography: Reporting with a Camera" that sums up what I'm looking at with this whole project:

"But the favorable court decisions [for press freedom] have not entirely relieved the minds of photographers and editors, for there still remains the moral question involved. One newsman put the question this way: 'What business has a photographer to make a living by treating human tragedy as a natural resource?'"

Here's another quote, from a different book, from Dorothea Lange regarding her famous Great Depression photograph "Migrant Mother":

"There she sat in that lean-to tent with her children huddled around her, and seemed to know that pictures might help her, and so she helped me."

No. 3 in the Pac-10, sort of

That last bit from the 1904 Chinook caught my attention. If the Evergreen held a place of distinction in "the college journalism of the West," what did college journalism actually look like at that point?

Here's a rundown of when the Pac-10 student newspapers joined the tradition:

1871 The Daily Californian (at Cal)
Remarkably, it's had pretty much the same name ever since it began as one of the earliest college newspapers in the country and one of the first newspapers at all in the West.

1892 The Stanford Daily
Originally it was called The Daily Palo Alto.

1895 The Evergreen

1899 The Arizona Wildcat
It started with the stupid name Silver & Sage, later evolving to the Arizona Weekly Life and the University Life before getting a name that sounds marginally more like a real paper.

1900 The Oregon Emerald
It was the Oregon Weekly until 1909.

1906 The Daily Barometer (at Oregon State)
Its predecessor started in 1896 as a monthly literary magazine, then finally turned into a real weekly newspaper.

1906 The State Press (at Arizona State)
It started out as the Tempe Normal Student and then the Tempe Collegian. In 1890 they started a 1-page supplement to a professional local paper. It was called the Normal Echo.

1909 The Daily (at University of Washington)
UW technically had a paper called The Pacific Wave in 1891, but I'm not counting that because then they would be earlier than us.

1912 The Daily Trojan (at USC)

1919 The Daily Bruin
It didn't get its name until 1926, after putting in a few years as the Cub Californian and the California Grizzly. They also had a paper of sorts called the Normal Outlook from 1910 to 1918.

1904: 'The white light of truth'

Here's a rosy view of the journalistic mission from the 1904 Chinook. It's a bit dense.

"The most distinctive characteristic of present day college life is the college paper. Our fathers knew no college paper, and the only way that they knew of their fellows in other colleges was by word of mouth, and that word was usually steeped in the deepest venom before it reached its destination. We should feel glad, therefore, that the white light of truth and fairness shines down upon our educational world through the medium of the printed page.
The first attempt to found a college paper in the Washington Agricultural College was in the 'Crib' days of our college, when the 'Record,' a paper which would do credit to an old established college, was launched by Mr. Hull. The journalistic light shone fitfully, flickered and went out leaving our college without a medium of communication with the outside world. Our big brothers were not men who hid their light under a bushel and in 1894 the frail bark yclept 'Evergreen' was launched upon the sea of trouble with W.D. Todd at the helm. Although the angry sea has often threatened to crack the ribs of the frail craft, it has sailed steadily onward, never missing a number in the nine years of its existence, and it now occupies a distinct place, not only in our community, but in the college journalism of the West."

No hiding the truth in 1903

From the 1903 Chinook, one of my favorite passages ever:

"Of the 'success and futility' of the Evergreen it is useless to speak – every one connected with the college knows all about that, especially the futility. Neither would it be worth while to trace the history of this remarkable enterprise from its earliest beginnings in the dawn of the Washington Agricultural College down to the present time. It is likely that no one but students of economic science and history (possibly biologists also) would be interested in such an account, and it would be better for such students to so 'source work' than to depend upon any statements we might make. We will simply leave it recorded here that the Evergreen is in the eighth year (tenth, if we include its predecessor, the College Record) of its promising career, and that the present staff go about their work as if it were really important.

Lunch with the editor

This is like the opposite of history – Here's a photo from today of Evergreen editor-in-chief Brian Everstine looking professional (minus the Doritos) while no one comes to visit his weekly Lunch With the Editor at The Bookie. It's every Wednesday from 1 to 2 p.m., in theory. He is dressed so classy because he attended the Student Advisory Board meeting at the President's Residence in the afternoon. He forgot how to tie a half-windsor knot for about half an hour this morning, but fortunately remembered in time to get his tie on.

WSU history > postgame show

Apparently paging through old Evergreen tomes is contagious. It warmed my heart to see my fellow editors enthralled with achives books I left around the newsroom a while after the final thrilling moments of Super Bowl XLII. They were amused by alcohol advertisements and articles about the booming popularity of videocassette technology.

What I was looking for were the last times the WSU campus was closed. This was a big question last week, and there was a surprising lack of anyone at WSU who could say for sure. This is what I found:

Feb. 9, 1996: Flooding forced road closures and made the administration question how many faculty members would make it to campus. Faculty and staff were still expected to be at work if possible, and canceled classes were not rescheduled.

Nov. 22, 1985: Snow and cold temperatures around the state prompted WSU officials to cancel classes the Friday before Thanksgiving break. Classes from that day were made up on Dec. 7, a Saturday.

Jan. 4 and 5, 1982: The first two days of spring semester classes were canceled after snowy weather statewide kept students from returning to Pullman. Classes had to be made up on the following two Saturdays.

May 19 to 22, 1980: After ash from the Mount St. Helens eruption blanketed Pullman, hindering travel and raising health questions about air quality, classes were canceled for four days. President Glenn Terrell considered closing WSU for the rest of the semester, but decided to reopen. More than 1,000 students applied for emergency leave due to medical or psychological concerns.