Board Agenda

REGULAR MEETING
Feb. 21, 2007 • 6:30 p.m.
Student Media conference area, Witherspoon

MEMBERS PRESENT: Christine Dipietro, Joe Humphries, Jacqueline Indula, Simon Huleatt, Patrick Ewing, Brandon Wright, Keitris Weathersbe, Tyler Dukes, Lauren Gould, Brian Ware, Adam Compton

The Board elected Simon Huleatt as Board chairperson by consent. Tyler Dukes remains the vice chair.

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

Awards & Recognitions

The 2006 Agromeck was nominated as one of 13 finalists for the Pacemaker award, one of the top national awards. This is the second time we have reached this honor. It has provided some much needed inspiration and motivation to the staff. Also, Taylor Publishing recognized the staff with an Award of Excellence honoring its yearbook design and coverage. The Agromeck was also featured in the 2007 Yearbook Yearbook .

There is no real new news for staff retention and recruitment. We are still trying to solve the problem of why staff members come in but leave within a couple weeks. I have talked to several staff members who have offered no real solution or reason for why they left except for they found other jobs. We have lost two staff members but have had two new ones to come in over the last week who are interested in writing. "Coop" Elias and Melissa Patzwaldt have shown a great effort in recruiting within CHASS.

The inner core of the staff is still getting along really well still with just a few kinks that have been worked out. Stress levels seem to rise around this time of year, especially when we have been playing catch up all year.

The new bowling league started up by the business office has shown to be a good stress reliever for the staff and a great way to get to know other staffs within the Student Media family. I would like to thank Krystal Pittman and Laura Duke for getting this organized.

Budget

Leadership classes

Since our last board meeting, I have taken two LDS classes; LDS 116 and LDS 169. The LDS intro class which is 116 was led by a student which made it somewhat unorganized. However, there really good points in 116 and 169 that pertain to having compassion for what you do. I felt a personal connection with that because I feel that I do have a passion for the Agromeck. I took several notes from each class pertaining to leading staffs. I still have LDS 111 and LDS 137 left to take this semester.

We are still playing catch up. Our focus over the last two weeks has really turned to covering academics and making sure that we do not fail on our end of the deal with each college that has kept in contact with us. Each member of the editorial board has taken a part in getting the academics covered because we do not have a sections editor specifically for the academics section. The portraits section of the book is about 90% complete and looks very good. I was pleased with the way the staff embraced the section and the effort shows with a tremendous improvement from last year.

To date, 135 books have been sold. This is a very dreary number. We have just sent out senior portrait postcards to remind seniors that they are in the book. We are hoping these 400 and some postcards will provide an increase in sales. Also, we are going to send out a letter to each parent or home address of students at the university.

Staff recruitment and Updates
The 15th edition of the Nubian Message is scheduled for Feb. 21, for this academic year. Since December, 2006, four people have been hired. Two students were hired as copy editor. There are currently 31 people on staff. One staff member has expressed interest in the editor-in-chief position for the 2007-2008 academic year and has made plans to apply.

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 will meet on Monday, Feb. 19. The staff and I are in the process of setting dates for open house, one taking place 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.

Code of Ethics Violation
On Feb. 8, the Nubian Message violated the Student Media Code of Ethics by appointing a student senator to the News editor position. I made the appointment without double checking Al Mcarthur's involvement in Student Senate. Since, the student has resigned from Student Senate.

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
No deviations from the budget

Leadership courses
Leadership courses for the semester include:
LDS 4 Stressed? Laugh It Off
LDS 185 Building Bridges: Leading Diverse Groups Through Conflict

We had two more resignations for the month of January in the features staff. Fortunately, we had several applications for the position and I chose to hire back Kathleen Gordon and Laura White as features editor and deputy features editor, respectively. I've attached copies of every editor's office hours to this report.

We're in the middle of a recruitment drive to attract interested students to all of the Student Media publications. I've met with Brandon Wright about attending several classes in First Year College. We've recruited here in the past and have been able to get a significant amount of people to join. Another great thing about First Year College is that the students will branch out into so many different areas. Recruiting here gives us the best possible chance at recruiting the most diverse staff we can.

Brandon and I already attended one class last week, and I attended another one today. I also spoke at the program's staff meeting Friday and they were very receptive to distributing Student Media sign-up sheets to their classes. The sign-up sheets should be coming back to us this week, during which time I feel confident we'll be able to recruit and train a good number of interested students.

We also held a very successful Monthly Mingle for January that was attended by a large number of staff members. I distributed the five monthly awards to the following people, who were scheduled to receive $20 on their All Campus cards.

We also gave special recognition to staff photographer Rob Bradley, who produced the Technician's first-ever audio slideshow about the Krispy Kreme challenge.

The staff slipped a little bit this month in meeting our goal for the 1 a.m. deadline. For the month of January, we made our deadline 77 percent of the time as of Bradley Wilson's last calculations at the end of the pay period. I want to assure you all I take that failure very seriously and have been working hard with my staff to ensure that we do not let those numbers fall again this month.

One positive thing was the rise in our ability to meet the midnight deadline. We were able to make our midnight goal 13 percent of the time in January, and I have noticed the staff is more conscious about striving to meet this deadline on a daily basis. Bradley and I will continue to monitor progress toward this goal, as we feel we may be able to adopt this formally into our policies for the following academic year.

We've made a few small steps toward expanding our Web presence. As I mentioned earlier, staff photographer Rob Bradley was able to produce an audio slideshow about the Krispy Kreme Challenge, and Austin Dowd followed this with a shorter audio slideshow about the Polar Plunge. I've also made an effort to put together a few Web-exclusive slideshows featuring the best of our weekly photography. We've published two such slideshows on the Web.

But in addition to all of this, we've added another page onto our Web site featuring all of our multimedia. You can access this by visiting www.technicianonline.com/multimedia . This is a great way to attract users to our site and we've gotten a lot of great feedback on the work.

Right now Rob Bradley and I are working with Brian Ware to develop "88.1 Seconds of the Technician " as a segment on WKNC. We are also looking into developing this as a daily podcast both our sites will offer to users.

For the month of February, I attended the LDS 194 - The Job Search and Skills Necessary to Succeed by Andy Nowel. This session helped me to better evaluate what my skills were and how I could more effectively communicate these skills with potential employers through real-world examples. For the remainder of the 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 in the past week that I feel are necessary to discuss.

Feb. 19, we published a story entitled "Students retain rights, freedom within reason." A posed photo that ran with this article depicted someone serving a female student with a fake warrant. The photo credit did not identify the photo as an illustration. Neither subject displayed any acknowledgement of the photographer's presence. The photo was extremely misleading to readers and should not have run. This is particularly frustrating given that we had a very similar instance occur in the fall, in which case we addressed the ethics of the photo and have even questioned the legitimacy of several photos since that time. We actually did have a discussion in the newsroom about the ethics of running this photo, but the editors - including me - all decided that the photo would be clear enough to our readers as posed and not an attempt at a candid image.

We were wrong. At the budget meeting Monday, we discussed the image with Bradley and Ronny Nause, the photo editor, and attempted to come up with a solution for why we had made this mistake again. One of the reasons was fully my fault, as I was under the mistaken notion that a "photo illustration" tag only applied to photos that we digitally alter. I was wrong, and failed to utilize the photo training manual to double-check my assumption. A second reason is that we are continuously forgetting that it is incredibly easy to confuse a reader. We adopt the notion of making our copy as clear and concise as possible for this reason, and it should be exactly the same for our photos.

Another problem originated with today's photo that ran with the sports story "State resembles '98 team." The caption information did not say when the picture was taken. The photo attribution did not state it was a file photo. This is also misleading to the reader and erodes our credibility.

While this is frustrating, I can't say that the staff has learned nothing from the previous mistakes. There was a discussion in the first instance, it just returned an incorrect answer. The caption issue in the second violation is more an issue of oversight than anything else, and I plan to hold the copy editors and photographers more accountable in reviewing these photos during the editing process.

The ultimate solution to these problems is forthcoming. However, I plan to visit with the photo editor and the copy editors to develop a system that will better guard against these mistakes. I also plan to use time at Thursday's budget meeting to go over the photo manual with the staff and make sure we know our policies inside and out.

I want you to know I take these violations very seriously and welcome any suggestions you may have.

No deviations from the budget have been made at this time. We will have to move funds to accommodate slightly higher printing costs (between $400-$500) than were originally anticipated. We have been working with Theo Davis printing on this issue.

All literary and visual submissions have been chosen. Submitters will be notified of acceptance/rejection during the first week of March.

While we received record high numbers of literary and visual submissions, we did not receive as many audio submissions as we needed to produce a CD that represents more than a few genres, so we notified the music department and asked to receive more submissions. Music submissions are now open until the first week of March.

General

WKNC is still on the air with no reported problems of engineering. A few shifts within the DJ schedule have opened up and all is well. Assistant Music Director Nick Berry gave a tour of the station to a troop of Cub Scouts on Saturday, Feb. as part of WKNC's public affairs/service. The Double Barrel Benefit IV that took place on Feb. 3-4. It was a great success and the best benefit the station has done yet. WKNC raised approximately $2,100 over two nights from ticket sales and merchandising sales.

Budget

WKNC sponsorship sales are beginning to increase as the month of February has seen the arrival of several new clients. If this trend continues at the pace that it does, WKNC will be in great shape for the income side of the budget. WKNC has also partnered with a local Raleigh Irish Pub named Tir Na Nog for a weekly event known as "Local Band, Local Brew." As a partner, WKNC will heavily promote the event on air as well as a have a presence at the event each week.

Training

The spring WKNC training class is well underway. The class is full with 20+ trainees in regular attendance. The training has been a great success in semesters past and is continuing on very strongly. The trainees have been assigned to DJs for in studio training and are moving along quite nicely.

Other

Station adviser Jamie Lynn Gilbert and Chief Engineer John Jernigan performed an act of station outreach to several students from UNC-Wilmington who came to WKNC to inquire about starting an Internet radio station. Jamie and John discussed the engineering, programming, and promotional aspects that would become apparent in undertaking this endeavor. John and Jamie also extended an open invite to the UNC-W students for any help that they may need in the future pertaining to this issue.

WKNC is planning on a week-long public affairs and promotions campaign for the last week of March. The campaign will consist of several interviews both live in the studio and pre recorded at alternative locations to promote the safe consumption of alcohol, the dangers behind driving drunk, and to make the listening audience aware of the various viewpoints about alcohol from members of various alcohol related organizations, individuals affected by alcohol, and enforcement officials who deal with alcohol-related cases.

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.