The Importance of the Campus Newspaper Experience

I don’t doubt that we’re headed for a post-newspaper world, but I am not in a hurry to get there.

Take The Gazette, for instance. Our local newspaper, which arrives at my house frustratingly late each morning, nonetheless provides an important forum that both covers the news and provides important local commentary on it.

And recently, two former editors of the MMU Times, the campus newspaper that I advise, had interesting guest columns published in The Gazette.

Image posted by The Gazette on Aime Wichtendahl's column.

Aime Wichtendahl, a member of the city council of Hiawatha, a contiguous city with Cedar Rapids, wrote about the impact of proposed property tax caps at the state level. I like to think Aime’s experience as Editor-in-Chief of the MMU Times made the column a bit easier for her to write.

Erika Brighi,
posted by Gazette.

And Erika Brighi, a former managing editor of the MMU Times, explained the “100 Who Care” program in her guest column. Erika was both a writer and gifted photographer, and I know she has carried on the photography interest—it’s great to read her words, too.

I really enjoyed seeing those familiar names in print—and nice that there is still a forum for their expression in the form of a local newspaper. Of course, in the coming post-paper world, online news sites can step in and provide key forums. Today, sadly, the online world doesn’t have a great track record, but I hope that changes.

For now, yay newspapers. They are still important, and the MMU Times is still a force on campus.

Next year’s editor is interviewing students this week to set up her team—and we’ve had the biggest response to our call for applications in years, with more than a dozen students stepping forward. That young woman who will lead the Times has the enviable task of having more willing workers than she probably has slots for, and it’s the first time I recall that happening recently at Mount Mercy.

Something is in the air. The Trump bump? Whatever—on campus, the struggle is to get students interested in reading the newspaper, but a campus without vibrant student media is missing something important. At least it’s not as big of a struggle to get students who are willing to write and edit the paper.

It’s great to see that at MMU, young writers still aspire to produce the news. It’s wonderful to have future editors so ready to take on the challenges of what comes next.

Veronica Jons, next year's MMU Times editor--future Gazette guest columnist? Or editor?

Veronica takes notes.

One of the students being interviewed--Nicole was a staff writer this year.

The Dangers of Windmill Thinking

The crazy keeps piling up. This week it was windmills. Our Dear MisLeader is convinced they cause cancer, although as Colbert points out, the real danger is that listening to Trump trumpeting his nonsense causes brain damage:



And part of the problem here is that wind energy is not all sweetness and light—it does have problems, and noise and bird deaths are issues. Still, the death, environmental damage and pollution caused by fossil fuels seems to make wind a pretty good deal, in comparison—and all those windmills rich jerks like Trump like to hate are being put up by pretty hard-headed utility companies.



But I worry that Don Trump Quixote may again be distracting us. While the media are tilting at his ridiculous farcical notions--meanwhile, horrible other policies are taking shape. Take this excellent column by Lynda Waddington from this morning’s Gazette.

I have no words, no wind, no ability to summon anything but anger. In the Civil War, the question was whether freed slaves would become citizens of the United States. A wise man of the time said some wise words about African-American soldiers:

"Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letter, U.S., let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket, there is no power on earth that can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship."

Frederick Douglass

Frederick had it right. Deport U.S. veterans because of misdemeanors or old paperwork errors? The sound you hear is not wind, it's my blood boiling at the very thought. I'm not a veteran, and you don't have to be one to love America, but if anything clarifies your loyalty to the U.S., wearing our uniform ought to, and citizenship for those whose breasts bore, in a symbolic sense, the brass letters "U.S." isn't even open to question, to my mind.

I hear a wind coming, and I hope it is a political storm that sweeps the Trumpers out in 2020.

Never forget—this is what this awful, evil administration has brought us to. While we are distracted by the idiocy of the war on windmills, our government is doing dark deeds that should bring us all shame.

Which means that it doesn’t really matter who is nominated to oppose Donald Trump in 2020. No, I know it matters in many ways--but it does not matter for whom a rational person a will vote that fall. As long as they aren’t Donald Trump, chances are they will at least have enough of a grasp of reality to know that the noise of wind can sway hearts and minds, but it cannot cause cancer.

As for the orange one, he is a cancer on our body politic. Let us remove him and his minions ASAP.