The fish rots from the head down Dreamed 6000 days ago | | 740 words
Something I don’t write about nearly often enough is my love for student media.
In High school, I worked on the literary magazine at Clarke County High School all four years I was there. Every year we produced a couple of magazine during the school year taking our meager budget and resources to outshine the bigger, more expensive schools.
We took a lot of pride in our work and during my senior year I collaborated on a CD project with another friend. We recorded musical groups and people from our school, mixed it and mastered it the best we could and included it with the magazine.
In college, this trend changed. I worked on the literary magazine there, but it didn’t encompass the same soul as our little magazine. So even though I continued to run it, my heart and soul was not in it the same way it had been in high school.
I took a job at the school newspaper to make some money and to do something I really enjoyed. I met great friends and have a lot of good memories and produced a lot of work those few years.
This back story brings me to what I wanted to talk about. Leadership and running organizations. I’ve been a part and led a number of different media organizations as a student. I think I have a pretty good handle on what it takes to run a successful media group.
There is a lot of teamwork, communication, and give-and-take involved.
It pains me to see when a successful media group decapitate its program (by removing a very successful and much-loved professor from her position). Then, instead of putting a strong, cooperative leader in place, they go out and find the most politicking person they could.
So now, my much beloved student media is being head by a lame duck. Someone who is completely out of touch with the radio, newspaper, and multiple student magazines. I will not call this person out by name.
I will merely say this person is an ill fit to the position he holds. As the Student Media Director, the idea is the position will be the link between the student groups and university.
Instead, this person does not have any idea what the student groups do or what their needs are. Having worked with this person, I know he is just BS-ing his way through. If anyone higher up were to even care the slightest bit about the media there, it would be obvious that he has no clue how to do his job.
There are so many better people for the position. I’ve worked with many of them. A lot of the kids I went to school with, and a lot of the people I knew that worked there would be so much better for that job.
My friend who is there now could have his job. She would do a better job than I would. She knows the school and the media there inside and out.
Heck, I want his job. I wanted his job since before he had his job and they were interviewing for it. The interviews were worthless. Even when the school had found an excellent candidate, they waited so long to get back to him, he had moved on. So then they tried to bring in someone else who had no idea what he was doing.
And we refused to work with him, if hired. So he was not.
Then this guy was hired. And he continues to do…. nothing. I wish the school would wake up and realize this. I wish they would help to build up the student media and see the connection between a strong student media and a stronger professional media.
They are doing a disservice to anyone working in the student media there today. Instead of having an helpful advocate, they have an oft-missing, out-of-touch administrator. I have never had the displeasure to work with someone so worthless in my life.
It pains me to see my beloved media falling into such disarray! I spent 3 years of my life as a student and a year and a half after graduation working on the media there. To see this hard work go to nothing is distressing.
I hope that one day the media will get someone to help and grow the media. It’s a shame that such a huge university have such a neglected student media program. Maybe one day someone will open their eyes.
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