Board Notes

REGULAR MEETING
January 23, 2007 • 6 p.m.
Student Media conference area, Witherspoon

Present: Christine Dipietro, Joe Humphries, Simon Huleatt, Brandon Wright, Keitris Weathersbe, Tyler Dukes, Adam Compton (non-voting)

Guests present: Bradley Wilson, Martha Collins, Jamie Gilbert and Steve McCreery

Because there was no quorum, no official business could take place. However, members and guest present reviewed the items below and discussed board reform. We have until Feb. 1 to get materials prepared for the ballot, including the paragraph that students will see. The actual wording of the new Constitution has been online with no objections since Seplicationtember and the Statute/Student Body Constitution version has been online for three years with no objections. No one present tonight objected to presenting this as the wording. CLICK HERE for this wording.

EXECUTIVE SESSION
The Student Media Advisory Board may adjourn into executive session to discuss matters of litigation, potential litigation or personnel.

Mary Beth Hamrick, managing editor, marybeth@agromeck.ncsu.edu
William Alligood, photo editor, will@agromeck.ncsu.edu
Melissa Patzwaldt, section editor, melissa@agromeck.ncsu.edu
John "Cooper" Elias, section editor, john@agromeck.ncsu.edu
Mark Fenimore, design editor, mtfenimo@ncsu.edu
Jamie Rochelle, marketing manager, jrrochel@ncsu.edu
Jon Clemmons, assistant manager, jgclemm2@ncsu.edu

Staff recruitment/retention
Part of my goals when I was hired as the editor was to recruit and build a trustworthy staff. As of this semester, we have eight active editors/managers and four writers and designers. As a result from the semester change, we have lost three to five active staff members due to overloads in class or other reasons. However, we have added two new staff members who will be learning the fundamentals of design and writing. Liz Koenig, a junior in psychology, and Lauren Brookshire, a freshman communications media, both show promising additions to our staff.

The inner core of our staff has become really close. At times there is tension, but I believe this keeps everybody doing what tasks they should be on. The bonding staff has lead to friendships developing outside of the office. This staff really has learned to trust each other and has learned that they can count on each other. Hopefully, this will spill over into the younger staff members as the come in.

I will be setting dates for a monthly staff dinner within the next couple weeks.

Leadership classes
Over the course of the semester, I will be taking the monthly required leadership courses. I enrolled in LDS-116, LDS-169, LDS-111, and LDS-137. My goal is to take advantage of this series and take the required 10 classes to earn a certificate in leadership. If time allows, I want to take one or two more classes during the semester.

Production schedule
I have attached the current ladder for our production schedule. Bradley and I sat down at the end of the fall semester and evaluated the easiest way for the book to get back on schedule. We finished the fall semester about 26 pages short of our projected goal of 100 pages due to the plant.

To compensate for that, we added a mini deadline on Jan. 17 to turn in all the theme pages. We also kept the Jan. 26 deadline and canceled the February deadline. This allowed us to add more to the January deadline and then add more to the March deadline. This also had to be done to keep the number of deadlines the same as before so that we follow the payroll salaries.

By the end of January, we are projected to be back on track with the plant, an admirable feat in my opinion.

Advertising
Our advertising has become an added element to this staff. We are learning things that do and do not work. We have put up a display of Agromeck man in the bookstore. It is yet to be seen if this has worked or not. We are possibly going to try moving the display around campus to other spots.

During the winter retreat for the staff, given by Bradley, we looked at things we thought could be done better to help increase sales of the book. As a staff, we came to the realization that it really is the parents who buy the books for their students. By realizing this, we are going to create one or two mass mailings to the parents of all students. Of course, a parent will probably ask a student if they know what the Agromeck is if they get a card in the mail, so we will still keep up our efforts to get the word out about the book to students as well.

Staff recruitment and Updates
The first issue was available on Jan. 17. Since December 2006, 4 people have been hired. Two students have expressed interest in copy editing and I am scheduled to meet with them soon. There are 29 people on staff.

Starting in January, evaluations will be given to the staff on a bi-monthly basis. These evaluations will be used to address any concerns of the staff, and for the staff to give feedback on readership and staff leadership. We have made significant improvement from a year ago, but there are more improvements to be made. My top priority, in terms of hiring and positions, is to find a well-trained layout or design student. At the moment, I am the only staff member producing layouts.

The Nubian Message advisory board plans to meet this semester; time and date TBA. The staff and I are in the process of setting dates for open house, one taking place in February and the other in April. As for staff awards, the staff member who produces the best work each month will continue to be awarded. In addition to a certificate, the staff member will receive All-Campus credit (future reports will include names and awards.)

Goals
Our goal for the semester, and for the future, is to increase circulation. Questions have been raised from readers as to when we will have more bins available at more locations. Until the budget allows for such, we will continue to pass out copies of the Nubian as a staff, in areas the Nubian is not available.

Budget
On Dec. 1, 2006, the Nubian Message staff held an end-of-semester gathering. Funding for the gathering has been deducted from the staff development portion of the staff budget.

Leadership courses
Leadership courses for the semester include:

The staff of the Technician has experienced quite a bit of turnover since the end of the fall semester. Over the winter break, I received the resignations of two more section editors, which puts the total number of section editors who have resigned from their posts up to six. Burnout is the largest factor that has caused these resignations, but the latest two employees also left due to personal reasons as well. We've shifted some things around, so the following is the new makeup of the Technician's editorial board.

I'm confident this staff is solid and that it will last through the duration of the spring semester. Nevertheless, I'll be keeping a close eye on staff morale and will endeavor to support my editors and help them when they have trouble through the course of the semester.

In the upcoming weeks, we'll also be starting up our recruiting drive. We've already begun running house advertisements that will draw people in. In addition, we'll be setting up information tables and visiting classes around campus to find new people.

This staff is doing an excellent job sticking to the 1 a.m. deadline. In November, we met our 1 a.m. deadline 85 percent of the time, surpassing our goal of 80 percent. Of the three times we missed the deadline, news was the last page turned in, which makes sense due to the section's late-breaking nature. However, we didn't once meet our midnight goal in the month of November. This is a problem and I think it is one of the many factors that leads to burnout. Since the beginning of the semester (seven issues), we have missed our 1 a.m. deadline once and made the midnight goal once. Our focus this semester will center around getting sections out earlier and hopefully increasing the occurrence of meeting the midnight deadline.

In an effort to streamline production and fill more pages with informative and entertaining content, we've finally rolled out our redesigned Page 2. This page features at-a-glance style copy that is designed to be quickly read and digested by the reader. The page features some of the familiar news elements such as the police blotter and In the Know. There will also be some new features, such as Technician Backtracks, which looks back at headlines of the past, and a feature photo, which will run every day. It's our belief that this easy to design and valuable page will increase the quality of the news section and lead to a more stable layout throughout the course of each week.

I've signed up for the remainder of the Leadership Development Series courses for the spring semester. I will be taking the following courses:

We have already set up a training schedule for the remainder of the spring semester. This schedule is listed below.

Bradley and I will work to coordinate these training sessions during the course of the semester.

There were two violations of our Code of Ethics that occurred during the fall semester that are worth serious discussion. One involves a possible retooling of the current version of our code, while the other provided an interesting learning experience.

On Nov. 28, we published both a story and an editorial about a group who was "giving away" free hugs in the Brickyard. In the story and the editorial, we published the incorrect date for the event. Because both pieces ran a few days prior to the event, we had the opportunity to correct our mistake and notify our readers so they could still attend. In light of this fact, I made the decision to run a front-page correction, as well as a correction on Page 2 and on the editorial page. This was a violation of our Code of Ethics, which states that corrections and clarifications must always run in a consistent location throughout publication. I would like to suggest we amend this policy to allow for more flexibility in the judgment of more egregious errors, whose corrections may benefit readers more if placed differently in the paper.

The second violation was a more serious one. On Dec. 6, we published a story entitled "Hunting for any season." The photo that ran with this article depicted a female student aiming a hunting rile in a wooded area. She displayed no acknowledgement of the photographer's presence. Underneath the photo, the caption stated that the student was posing for the photo. The photographer, Matt Moore, made it clear to the photo editor that he had staged this photo, very much in the same vein as an environmental portrait. The photo editor and the director of photography however, informed the photographer that this was unethical and that the photo would not be running with the article. Despite this dialogue, the photo was mistakenly placed on the page and printed in the next day's issue. I, along with my editors who checked and approved the page, was not aware of this conversation did not see a problem with the photo. We were wrong. In several discussions with our adviser and with the director of photography, it became clear to us that the photo was indeed unethical in that it deceived the reader into thinking this was a candid image. This detracts from the credibility of our photography in general.

I'm confident that this staff has learned a lot from this mistake. In the months following this event, the photo editor, along with several other section editors, have brought issues to my attention that may be unethical. In one instance their discretion led to us pulling from the a photo that was definitely unethical.

Production schedule
Submissions are now closed. All literary submissions have been chosen. Other media are in the final stages of review. We have been meeting with Frank Pulley at Theo Davis to work through printing issues and set production deadlines. We expect the book to go to the printer at the end of February. Everything is on schedule.

Web site
Josh Smith, Web master, is still in the process redesigning the Web site, but an improved version of the site is up and running.

New plans
We are planning to have interaction between the book and the Web site. In this way, we can include media such as video and digital literary works on the Web site and direct book readers to the Web site to experience these media. The Web site can also work as an expansion of the book in this way.

General
WKNC is still on the air! The staff for WKNC is back in full force for the spring semester of 2007. WKNC saw the graduation of five staff members on Dec. 20. On the other hand, the staff was increased by 24 new members upon their successful completion of the fall training course. The spring training class begins on Jan. 25. WKNC has a current on air DJ schedule that is nearly full for our daytime format with the exception of four open shifts. We have DJs live on the air from 5 a.m. until 2 a.m.

Promotions
The WKNC Double Barrel Benefit 4 will be taking place on Friday, Feb. 2, and Saturday, Feb. 3. This event looks to be the most successful out of all of the previous benefits. The Double Barrel Benefit 3 held last February was named one of the best shows of 2006 by the Independent Weekly .

Budget
WKNC continues to maintain close contact with the business office to increase our sponsorship income. Recent activity included the production of a DA for Herbalife. The DA was written by Jamie Lynn Gilbert and voiced and produced by Brian Ware. The client sent this e-mail response to the business office upon hearing the completed DA:

"Tell everyone that it was FANTASTIC. Our company has grossed more than $3 billion. That is how large it is, and the actual CEO of everyone (not only in the US, in 63 countries) heard it and said he had known of people hiring marketing companies at something like $30,000 for an ad that did not even come close to yours."

WKNC and the business office are planning to promote Black History Month through a series of sponsored public service announcements in a partnership with the Nubian Message .

Other
The staff of WKNC has been informed about the soon to be here deadline for running for the position of general manager for the 2007-2008 term as well as other positions on the WKNC Board of Directors. Several staff members have already expressed interest in these positions.

Problems
On Dec. 27-28 , D.H. Hill Library experienced power outages which affected the tower on the roof of the library and in turn caused WKNC to go off the air. The station remained off the air until midday on the Dec. 28 when power was restored to the library. WKNC engineers John Jernigan and Will Patnaud were notified of the problem immediately and worked with D.H. Hill to monitor and restore power to the transmitter.

To produce an annual (school year) calendar of deadlines and publication dates for all media while (1) educating students about the importance of meeting deadlines; (2) establishing consequences for failure to meet those deadline; and (3) learning how to plan so that major deadlines are broken into manageable pieces that can be delegated among staff members.

PLAN: The Technician staff will deliver the paper to the News & Observer by FTP on or before 1 a.m. 80 percent of the time in the fall and spring semesters as determined by the times logged by the N&O staff. If the staff exceeds this goal in any given month, the editor and managing editor will receive a 'bonus' which they can distribute as they see fit. If the staff falls below 80 percent of on time delivery in any given month, the editor and managing editor will receive a penalty equal to $50 for every five percent below goal. Editors may also choose to hold other staff members accountable for missing deadlines.

PLAN: If the staff meets or exceeds this goal for any given deadline, the editor, managing editor and photo editor may receive a 'bonus' of no more than $75/each which they can distribute as they see fit. If the staff fails to meet its deadline, the editor, managing editor and photo editor will only be paid a percentage of their monthly salary equal to the percentage of the deadline met. The editors may also choose to hold other staff members accountable for missing deadlines.

SOCIETY FOR COLLEGIATE JOURNALISTS — NCSU Chapter
Submitted by Kyle Blakely

The Society for Collegiate Journalists is a national honorary society for collegiate mass communications, journalism and other media. It recognizes students who have demonstrated excellence in both the realm of media and the classroom.

Fall Event
On Nov. 13, 2006, the NCSU Chapter of SCJ held its inaugural event at the Witherspoon Campus Cinema, a showing of "The Year of Living Dangerously." English assistant professor Dick Reavis provided an introduction to the movie and various members of the SCJ moderated a discussion on ethics in journalism following the feature presentation. The SCJ teamed up with the Union Activities Board to advertise the movie and the society also designed and printed flyers that it posted throughout campus. The event was successful and will serve as a stepping-stone for the event this semester.

New Members/Inductions
This spring, the SCJ encouraged students involved in Student Media to join the society and received five applicants. The existing society members voted on each of the applicants and each was voted in unanimously. The new members are as follows:

Current SCJ members welcome these new members into the society. They will be inducted on Friday, Feb. 2 at 6 p.m. in 323 Witherspoon Student Center. During this event, we will take a group shot for the Web site and the Agromeck.

Spring Events
The SCJ is planning two events for the spring semester. The first is a debate, to be held annually, that involves candidates running for positions in Student Government. Although there are various debates between candidates on campus each year, SCJ wants to become the sponsor of official debates annually.

The main event the SCJ is planning for the spring is a panel discussion on media coverage of the War in Iraq and/or the War on Terror. The society is in the process of recruiting people to be on the panel including an Iraqi civilian, an American soldier who has served in Iraq, a photojournalist and a war reporter. We are also trying to get General Hugh Shelton as the keynote panelist for the event. The goal is to have all details of the panel discussion solidified by mid-February.