Happy Friday to you all!

Tomorrow is a very busy day in my part of the world. The annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Scranton, which is arguably one of the most important days of the year in Northeastern Pennsylvania, will be held on Saturday – rain or shine.

However, the celebration cannot last too long. I am leaving early Sunday morning for the Crossroads of the World. I will meet up with my fellow Student Representative Tara Puckey, and attend the College Media Advisers’ Spring 2010 National College Media Convention.

We plan to post a whole lot of news and information on the blog over the next few days about the convention. There is no better way to get my fingers ready than to type a comprehensive edition of The Weekly Index.

So, here we go…

• The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act has been viewed as an impenetrable wall to many student and professional journalists around the country. SPJ’s FOI Committee has a new guide to make that wall look a little less intimidating. David Cuillier, chair of SPJ’s FOI Committee, has a post and link to the new guide here.
• Why is it a good time to join SPJ? Well, Holly Fisher, chair of SPJ’s Membership Committee, knows why. She has a post on The SPJ Garden Center. You can read her post here. For me, joining SPJ has been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I’ve met so many new friends and connected with so many professionals that I could not imagine my career without SPJ. Also, as a student entering the ever changing world of journalism… I think an SPJ membership is the safest investment you can make. One of my internship supervisors put it best. He told me that being a member of SPJ is, “just the right thing to do.”
• The Washington Post found themselves in a very interesting situation after running a photograph of two men kissing in front of a D.C. courthouse. The picture ran on the front page of the paper after the District started accepting marriage applications from same-sex couples. Andrew Alexander, The Post’s ombudsman, blogged about the negative response from readers, and defended the pictures place in the paper. A handful of people even canceled their subscription over the photograph. Some also suggested that the picture should have been buried on an inside page. Alexander posted an update that said readers led a counterattack against the negative comments about the picture. Some said they would subscribe to the paper to fill the void left by those who canceled their subscription in protest.

There was a time, after court-ordered integration, when readers complained about front-page photos of blacks mixing with whites. Today, photo images of same-sex couples capture the same reality of societal change. ~ Andrew Alexander

• There is an unfortunate case involving the University of Kansas and The University Daily Kansan. According to an article from The Kansan, Mason Heilman, student body president, lobbied that The Kansan’s funding be removed from the media fee charged to students. The motion passed the Student Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday, which means the paper will lose approximately $83,000 next year. The paper says it is 8% of their operating budget. Heilman told the paper, “The parallel to me would be if Congress stepped in and said The New York Times is about to go under and we think they are an important news source so we are going to fund them, but then we are going to expect them to provide unbiased coverage of us.” However, the paper is reporting that this is the only cut to the media fee. I plan on looking into this a little more, and will get back to you all with what I find out. You can read the articles about this in The University Daily Kansan here and here. Update! Scott Leadingham, Managing Editor of Quill, points out that the measure must still pass the entire Student Senate on March 24. Thanks, Scott!
• Does anyone have friends at North Carolina State University? If so, send them to the newspaper office, because they need help! The campus’ 90 year old paper is in danger of shutting down this semester due to a series of unfortunate events. They need more students to get involved, and even put out a help wanted ad as an editorial. You can read the editorial here.
• The long legal fight surrounding the Medill Innocence Project may be over. The Chicago Tribune reported that the attorney for Anthony McKinney will drop the evidence obtained by the Project, even though it may help establish McKinney’s innocence. The information gained by the students at Medill was questioned and much of the material was subpoenaed by prosecutors.
• I want all professional members that stumble upon our blog to sign up to be a mentor in SPJ’s Mentor Match Up. SPJ assigns mentors to young professionals first and then starts assigning them to students. So please encourage all SPJ Pro members to be mentors for their younger counterparts. I bet many will find that the experience will be beneficial to each party. So sign up here!
• The deadline for applications is drawing near for the Ted Scripps Leadership Institute. As a 2009 graduate of the Institute, I can say that the experience is completely worth the time and investment. I met so many people, and it really helped me get my foot in the door on the national level. You can find out more information here.
• Some of us have not even had our regional conferences yet, and national already has a tentative schedule for Vegas! Can you believe it? Well, you don’t have to. You can see it here.
• And finally, why don’t you take a trip over to the link for the SPJ campus chapter of the University of Central Florida? They have a great website, and get to have their regional conference in Disney World! You can also follow them on Twitter @spj_ucf, and check out their Facebook page.

That is all for now. I will have another post up later today, and then I need to finish packing for my journey to the Big Apple. Make sure you check back for photos and videos starting on Sunday, and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter @CampusCopy.

And just to show you how important St. Patrick’s Day is in my neck of the woods… Here is Michael Scott, Scranton’s most notable resident.


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Andrew M. Seaman is a senior communication studies student at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. He is one of SPJ’s student representatives on the national board and you can follow him on Twitter @aseaman06.

The Observer, the independent newspaper of Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s, accepted the resignation of Assistant Managing Editor Kara King, who took responsibility for the publication of an anti-gay cartoon in last Tuesday’s edition of the paper.

“A miscommunication between another editor and myself led to the comic running without me first reading and approving the material,” said King in a letter dated today. “Regardless, no excuse can justify the comic even being considered for publication, and the duty to censor it fell to me. I failed to do so, and am solely responsible for providing a forum for this message of hate.”

We first told you about the cartoon on Friday.

An editorial in today’s The Observer, the independent newspaper of Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s, apologized for an anti-gay cartoon that appeared in the January 13 edition of the paper.

According to IrishCentral.com, the cartoon depicts a conversation between a person and a saw. The saw asks, “What’s the easiest way to turn a fruit into a vegetable?” The man says, “No idea.” The saw replies, “A baseball bat.”

“The Observer, though an independent newspaper, is representative of the community of the University of Notre Dame and the values it so cherishes: family, understanding, service, respect and love,” read the editorial. “Allowing this cruel and hateful comic a place on our pages disgraced those values and severely hurt members of our Notre Dame family — our classmates, our friends. For this, we sincerely apologize.”

Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) said they contacted the paper’s editor after they saw the cartoon.

“This type of advocacy of anti-LGBT violence must stop. It isn’t funny. What’s more, it promotes hate crimes, which are all too prevalent in society today,” reads a post on GLAADBlog.org.

GLAAD also says that the cartoonist posted the cartoon to his blog, and said the original cartoon’s punch line was “AIDS.” The cartoonist claimed the punch line was changed, because the paper did not want to poke fun at AIDS.

“The Observer made a dangerously misguided decision that promoting violence was somehow superior to making fun of HIV/AIDS. Both versions of the cartoon were abhorrent,” said GLAAD.

According to the newspaper, one reason for the cartoon’s publication was a breakdown in the editing process.

“On our part, we must practice more responsible journalism and editing. That this comic was published reveals holes in our editing practices, which are currently being addressed.”

UPDATE: January 15 @ 8:25 p.m.

The artist’s blog seems to have been deleted, but Google has a cache of the blog with a copy of the comic, the original comic, and an online conversation with The Observer.

The conversation shows The Observer rejecting the original comic, and then saying the new version is “good.”

The cartoonists did release an apology.

“We cannot begin to express how apologetic we are for everyone who has been hurt by our comic and its implied message,” read the statement from Colin Hofman, Lauren Rosemeyer and Jay Wade.

What do you think about this situation? Do you believe The Observer should revise more than their editing procedures?

Let us know what you think by leaving a comment!