Comments on: Why I’m leaving

By: Emerald Strike Watch: Bigger Picture Thoughts « College Media Matters

Emerald Strike Watch: Bigger Picture Thoughts « College Media Matters — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 02:11:59 +0000

[...] Reimold College journalist extraordinaire Daniel Bachhuber, a University of Oregon student and ex-Emerald staffer, shares some important bigger-picture thoughts (and those of a colleague) about [...]

By: Daily Emerald on Strike, and the Evolution of the Newspaper - Daniel Bachhuber

Daily Emerald on Strike, and the Evolution of the Newspaper - Daniel Bachhuber — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 01:39:17 +0000

[...] Granted, I fully sympathize with the newsroom staff and their concerns that their voices weren’t being heard. I had to try and fight through the same institutional inertia this fall. [...]

By: Rick M.

Rick M. — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 22:13:42 +0000

Student papers need to make it a priority to think ahead into the future of media, not just to stay ahead of the game, but to fulfill the mission of student media which is to prepare students who want to work in journalism for the real world. That’s what we’re trying to do at FIU by involving reporters in every little multimedia process including audio and video so they can have that little extra item in their resume that will set them apart.

It seems, from what I’ve heard, that the Daily Emerald is focused on printing a paper, not delivering news. Delivering news is not producing a daily paper, it’s reporting intelligently and using all available mediums to broadcast the information, including print.

Good luck on what you set out to do next. Oh, yeah, and CoPress made it to round 2!

By: Cody Brown

Cody Brown — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 03:00:03 +0000

Oh my can I relate -

Before I came to NYU I emailed the editor of the WSN (the school newspaper) a full proposal for getting off College Publisher and onto an open source platform like WordPress. They were intrigued, told me to develop it more and get back to them. I produced a fully functional working prototype, sent it with a memo, they offered me the job of ‘Online Editor’ but told me they wanted to implement the changes on their current platform and stick with College Publisher for the foreseeable future. I was like Erg? Even more so, as soon as I started talking about changes to their format, I just got bureaucratic mumbles.

I quit, and a semester later, founded NYU Local: http://www.NYULocal.com

It’s been two months but we are now getting twice as many visitors as NYU’s 36 year old print paper.

http://siteanalytics.compete.com/nyulocal.com+nyunews.com/?metric=uv

Take it to Oregon!

By: Daniel Bachhuber

Daniel Bachhuber — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 20:10:07 +0000

Thanks for the comment, Zac. I'd like to make sure that it's clear I have tremendous respect for everyone I've worked with at the Daily Emerald. The hours are long, the pay is nearly nil, and they all have tremendous passion for what they do. It's the passion, in fact, that gets the paper product out every day. This post is one of frustrated love, rather than hate, because I really wanted to help the Daily Emerald evolve. I've written before about what College Publisher lacks, but it's not really a secret across the sector, and have even started a competitor. The real problem is that, I feel, all of the effort, passion, and capacity I've been building are for a large part wasted. Regarding how a post like this might affect my career, I completely understand what you are saying. No traditional employer wants employees bad-mouthing the company, either while they're working or after they leave. I would argue, however, that employees do have the right to respectfully disagree with decisions they don't believe are in the company's best interests and which they feel they have greater expertise in. This type of analysis should be public knowledge, because the Daily Emerald is going to have troubles in the near future and its products are services that affect the entire community. Furthermore, transparency is one of my key values. I'm all for secrecy when it's a story you're going to break or sweet new functionality for your website, but I feel this inertia I'm identifying is of a different genre. Pragmatically, not fixing these issues now (even though they should've been fixed five years ago) could cause serious problems for community news in a couple of years.

By: Zac Goodwin

Zac Goodwin — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 19:04:41 +0000

Hey Dan,

I can understand your frustrations and your points are valid. The only advice that I’d have to give you is not to do this as publicly as this. Maybe write up about how college publisher works, and how to change the structure of newspapers to better influence the readers. When you call out your former employer like this, especially as young as you are into your career, it can come back and bite you in the ass when you least expect it. Or at least it has in my experience.

- Zac