Combat college censorship, one comma at a time.

We’re looking for a few good copy editors with real bad attitudes – the ones who want to fight the man while battling mispellings and run-on sentences.

If you’ve followed this blog the past couple weeks, you know the journalism school at Florida A&M University…

• shut down the student newspaper for a month while denying the paper was shut down for a month.
• fired its newpaper adviser and hired a PR consultant to replace him, without posting the job.
• forced editor in-chief Kyle Etters to run for his position again, accused him of publishing “negative” stories, and replaced him a day later.

Since then, Etters’ successor has fired news editor Evan Miles after a three-minute phone interview.

Both Etters and Miles are now spending their suddenly free time publishing their own independent and unofficial new site, Ink and Fangs. (FAMU’s mascot is a rattlesnake, hence the last part of the name.) But they need help.

“We’re looking for thorough, solid copy editors who want to help with independent student journalism,” Etters says. “We’ve seen a lot of support from around the country, and this is a chance to continue lending a hand in being a part of something bigger than us.”

Adds Miles, “We’re looking for editors who know AP style and are familiar with fact-checking copy. Every article, no matter how good, could always use an extra pair of eyes.”

If you’re willing to lend them your eyes, I’ll lend you a hand. Any college copy editor willing to volunteer a measly 30 minutes a week will receive…

• Free admission into next month’s SPJ southeastern spring conference, MediAtlanta. That’s a $90 savings.

• A First Amendment Free Food Festival T-shirt. (Cigar, hat, and model not included.) These shirts aren’t for sale – you have to host a FAFFF to get one.

• If your attending one of the spring college media conventions in San Francisco in Febraury or Manhattan in March, I’ll buy you a frosty adult beverage if you’re of legal age – or a soft drink if you’re not – and I’ll critique you resume. (Believe it or not, I’m a hiring editor at a chain of city magazines.)

• And, of course, lots of good karma. Plus some greedy quid pro quo – because if you’re school ever pulls the same crap, you’ll have friends in low places.

To apply for this weird volunteer gig, find the five copy-editing mistakes in this blog post and email them to inkandfangs@gmail.com.

This entry was posted by Michael Koretzky on Tuesday, February 5th, 2013 at 3:44 pm and is filed under college crap. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.