Article ‘Activates’ bad blood

A furore ripped across campus today (and by “furore” I mean something more like “inane lunchtable discussions and Editor Wars”) after the most recent edition of the student newspaper, Activate, came out. Now, being quite a Grammar Nazi, I can understand why. You see, in this edition, hiding  deep in the recesses of the Lifestyle pages (page 20, for those of you who want to track it down), is an article expertly penned by one Simone Loxton. I could delve into why this article was bad, but that would just be mea…

Oh, screw it. ATTACK!

THIS... IS... MATT'S BLOG!!!

The article (titled “Club Etiquette”, as if such a thing exists in Grahamstown) is written in a sort of offhand advice-cum-features piece, in an attempt to educate incoming seals, er, First-years on the ins and outs and expected behaviour at venues such as the memorable (and by that Rhodents usually mean that they remember nothing) smoke-filled sardine tin that is Friars, a place so littered with broken bottles and spilled drink that you sometimes catch yourself believing that the dancefloor is, in fact, trying simultaneously to shred and goo you to death. That is, if by that stage of the evening you haven’t already had someone try to eat you alive tonsils-first.

The article starts out, “There is something about Grahamstown that automatically justifies unbelievable behaviour on a night out”. Okay, so that means that the whole article is redundant, because you can basically do what you want, non? Moving on.

The rest of the first paragraph is filled with jumpy, fragmented language that seems as if the author tried to glue random bits of printed-out sentences together. However, the pièce de résistance of the article has to be the second paragraph, which reads (sans correction):

Firstly, and this on probably affects us all: do not drop your glass on the floor. The satisfying sound of the flat pop of a glass breaking as it smashes after its second bounce (can be the coolest way to make your point). People hate it when you do this, as having glass attached to the sole of your shoe (or foot) not only ruins it but makes you uncomfortable and really annoyed.
                Activate, Edition 1, 2012 (APA-style referencing can suck it)

Whilst I must congratulate the author on the correct use of “its” and “your” (a rarity in this place, believe you me), I must point out her redundancy: “the sound of the flat pop”. A pop IS a sound, dearie; it’s like saying “the bright blue of the blue sky”. Also: glass bounces? Last I checked, Friars didn’t serve drinks in HercuGlass tumblers. And why does the sentence suddenly cut into brackets?! Moving on from this, glass doesn’t merely attach to your foot or shoe. No: rather it sticks into that bastard, DEEP. I once stood on glass at a party in 2010 (sorry, “got glass ‘attached’ to my foot”) and needed five stitches, and I must say that I didn’t feel merely annoyed and uncomfortable. No, I screamed raving blue murder and had to be driven to a clinic many, many kilometres away for immediate treatment (I won’t say why the on-site paramedics didn’t stitch me up themselves – let’s just leave that in the past).

My first reaction to the article

Anyway, I’m actually getting bored of this. It’s too easy; my hyper-corrective tendencies make it like shooting handicapped fish in a glass beaker with an assault rifle. Also, I’m not sure if I want to be so mean to someone I don’t know.  But overall and all things considered (the tautology of solidarity, my friends, to show Miss Loxton that I feel her pain) what we can surmise from the short critique into this article that  either:
A) The subediting process went horrible askew,
or
B) Simone is a not an experienced writer.

Which brings me to the point of this blog post (which has changed since I’ve decided not to be an asshole): Student Journalism.

Last year I worked as the Opinions Editor for the better of the two Rhodes University newspapers (here, ladies and gentlemen, we see a display of the author’s terrible bias). It was, all things considered, a horrible job. After about three weeks, 80% (a made-up percentage, but bear with me) of my writing staff abandoned me/stopped responding to my emails, leaving me all alone in a locked room with a two-page, 3000-word section. Those were dark days. Add this to my commitments as a rower (training three times a day) and my duties as a student (essays abound), writing six or seven 500-worders was a chore. But hell, I did it. Once in a while I’d have a burst of inspiration from a seal, er, First-year student (political correctness is such a bitch), but overall it was a very heavy burden on my shoulders. Hell, ask any student editor.

As campus newsmakers, we have a responsibility to give our readers journalism and reportage that is relevant, accurate, and entertaining. However, one of the major problems is that the Journalism and Media Studies course at Rhodes is very theory-heavy, skimping on practical instruction and almost assuming that the students in question have been news writers for years before registering at Rhodes. And so, we as editors have to deal with one very problematic problem (solidarity, my brothers, solidarity): either reject the badly-written submissions and use our own years of skill and write the damn paper ourselves (a lengthy and time-consuming process that pushed the boundaries of my sanity, made the Opinions section more like “Matthew de Klerk’s personal ranting space” and discourages fledgling writers from practising their craft), or use their poorly drafted articles so as to encourage our writers and keep them submitting (at a cost to the paper’s overall appeal).

This is not, Dear Reader, an easy choice, and we editors are only human: subediting, improvements, restructuring and suggestions only go so far in polishing a turd, so to speak. And whilst it’s all very well to sit here and pick apart (hell, tear to shreds) a writer who is new to the craft, there are wider contexts to consider. Making a newspaper that long is not easy. I won’t ever pretend that it’s not.
Because it’s something we do above and beyond the call of duty. Swamped by tests, training and essays, we still take time to churn out news for student readers, who get the paper *for free*.

It's either one or the other.

It’s the modern conundrum of journalism: readers want it free AND well-written. Digital “free”ism is killing quality and increasing criticism. 

But as another point, let’s be serious: as bad as it is, it’s just a harmless features article. I’ve heard that relations between the opposing editors of each paper have become very strained and serious, with (sources tell me) allegations of “rape-denialism” (referring to paragraph five of the article) even surfacing. “Controversy where there doesn’t need to be,” my source tells me. Hells, I couldn’t have said it better myself. People need to take stuff less personally.

Anyway, I guess what I’ve taken too much of your time to say is that we shouldn’t be too harsh on our journalists. They’re trying their best. And Simone, if you’re reading this, just keep working at it.
You’ll always meet asshole critics (note: NOT "asshole-critics") like me. Just keep working at it.

Oh, and don’t drop glass in clubs. That shit is annoying and uncomfortable.