JESSICA DaSILVA

It took a few weeks, but I’ve finally settled into my new life. And after settling in, I’m ready to reflect on my semester as editor and look ahead to my new life.

I know my editorship at the Alligator was not perfect, but in the end, I accomplished what I set out to do. The Alligator is switching its content management system from TownNews to WordPress, and the editorial department’s needs are finally being recognized by the management and board of directors.

I made some very difficult decisions during my term, but the toughest was by far the decision to publicize the Alligator’s dilemma of not having an editor-in-chief applicant because of internal problems. (Editor’s note: The story did not come out as planned, but in the end, I guess it got the job done.)

Despite receiving a lot of flack, I still stand by that decision, and I am proud of it. It was because of that story that so many alumni got involved (including, but not limited to, financial donations). And the staff this semester started off with up-to-date software, some decent equipment and a positive outlook.

In the end, I’m happy with how last semester went.

This semester, I’ve taken a job at the UF Web Administration, where I’ll be helping improve its blog and doing some (X)HTML, CSS, etc. I’m really enjoying it so far. It’s very laid back and will definitely fine-tune my Web skills.

I’m also working as the Alligator’s ombudsman, a position I plan to use to assist in recruitment and image. I would really like to create a conversation with the Alligator’s audience and implement some of the ideas I mentioned in my State of the Newsroom Report from December. I would like to start an ombudsman blog to make the newsroom more transparent and approachable. I’ll let you know when this happens.

Finally, some of my random goals for this semester include brushing up on my American Sign Language, blogging much more frequently, practicing my crappy photography, and learning Flash and video shooting/editing. Oh, and studying for the GRE (groan). Looks like I’ll be pretty busy! Better get to work.

After the Friday meeting that selected the top three editors for the spring semester, the Alligator’s board of directors met with the Alligator staff to review the problems discussed at the crisis meeting and take suggestions for solutions.

As the outgoing editor, I summed up the problems/answers I could see in a state of the newsroom report, which I’m sharing here:

Read the rest of this entry »

OK, so I posted this response to the Alligator’s crisis on the Alligator alumni Facebook group the other day. I figured I would post it here to see if anyone else out there has suggestions on how we can pull ourselves out of this hole.

Dear Alumni,

Thank you for all the e-mails and messages you’ve sent. However, I think our own story missed the staff’s point, which is our fault.

Let me say this once: This staff is not working here for the money. We didn’t start at this newspaper for the money, and we’re not going into journalism for the money. We’re not afraid of long hours and hard work.

What we’re afraid for is our futures.

Mary is absolutely correct. We are not getting the experience that we need for internships and jobs that are out there.

I can’t tell you how many times we’ve heard, “You worked at the Alligator? That’s great. What else have you done?”

The truth of the matter is that the Alligator is NOT getting us internships and jobs anymore.

Many members of the staff find their first internships through personal connections with the faculty. Others sign up for programs where you pay to take classes and intern in a big city (the programs guarantee you an internship).

The problem? We’re not a place for innovative journalism anymore. Today, journalism is not just copy and headlines. We’re being expected to (at the very least) know (X)HMTL, CSS, how to gather/edit audio (and sometimes video), build Soundslides and more.

We put out what little we can, but that’s just it; it’s not enough. We don’t have equipment or staff to do what’s necessary to uphold our reputation.

We’ve built bridges with the faculty to get them to encourage students to work here, and they’ve done that. Staffers visited every single reporting lab to recruit new writers. We’ve done everything we could think of to build up our staff, and it hasn’t worked well enough to build up a strong incoming class of staffers.

We had funding for a full staff this semester. As it stands now, we have three writers on the university desk and two on metro. That makes up our entire staff of writers. The rest are freelancers. We have five writers. Five.

Those five writers are covering ALL of our important news. They typically write three stories a day. How are they supposed to gather and edit the audio for those stories and build a Soundslides when they have to write those stories? They can’t learn those new, vital technology skills when they’re making up for a non-existent beat partner.

The skills students need to succeed in today’s journalism industry are not being taught in full at the Alligator. They’re finding opportunities to learn those skills elsewhere, especially in the college, which is constantly upgrading its technology and curriculum and emphasizing the importance of multimedia skills.

And so it becomes a vicious cycle. We can’t attract students because we don’t have the technology or manpower to spearhead the online movement, so the current staff suffers. They get burned out because they’re doing more than just working hard, they are doing the work of several reporters and editors.

Many of you cited that despite the workload, you had fun. I can say that’s how I felt when I started here, but after being part of a staff that has been recycled over and over again, I can tell that no one is having fun anymore. We’re in the same position that all of you who are in newspapers now are in.

The only difference is that working at the Alligator is optional, so people are finally choosing to leave, and they’re leaving heartbroken. They work their fingers to the bone every day only to get Dear John letters back from internships.

So once again, thank you for your encouraging words and testimonials, but for the Alligator to remain the place you remember it to be, it’s going to require much more.

I’ll keep you updated.

Jessie DaSilva
Editor-in-Chief, fall 2008

Since I posted this, I’ve received a lot of positive feedback and suggestions from alumni. We’ve also had an editor applicant, but it doesn’t fix the problems we’re still facing.

As I wrote to one alumna, if I had to boil everything down, I think our two improvements would be:

1. Monthly board meetings - The board of directors, being our publisher, has become far removed from our issues from only meeting once a semester.

The Alligator staff has been dwindling for about five years, and the board didn’t do anything until this semester when the last of our recycled staff decided to leave. If they had heard about our problems on a monthly basis, there would have been more time for brainstorming and alumni outreach.

2. New equipment/software - We’re not asking for top-of-the-line equipment and software, but what we have now is not even industry standard. We all recognize that the problem with technology is that it becomes outdated so quickly.

After 10 months, there’s already something better out. However, we’re working on computers that are 10 years old. It wouldn’t be a problem if it could support our outdated software, but it barely does that. Some of them don’t even have USB outlets for our thumb drives.

Meanwhile, all of our software is outdated. Photo doesn’t even have a recent version of Photoshop, which is a pretty basic need.

So if anyone has any additional ideas, shoot them my way. I have to write a report of our problems and some proposed solutions for our board and staff meeting on Friday. I’ll take as much input as I can get.

For the past few weeks, I’d been applying, researching and preparing to run for editor in chief of The Independent Florida Alligator, which is billed as the nation’s largest student-run newspaper.

As of Aug. 1, I have the job. I’ve been looking forward to this since I started at the Alligator, and I’m surprisingly feeling a lot of mixed emotions now that I’ve got it.

When I started, I knew I would stick around out of loyalty to the paper and hoped to one day head the organization. However, as I started getting more involved with online journalism, the burning desire to take over grew from frustration with editors who ignored or looked down on our Web site from their high horse.

Some past editors saw the site as nothing more than a way to archive print stories and occasionally scoop The Gainesville Sun. As a student at a college newspaper, I can see the potential for our Web site to take risks and do some truly great journalism – with less bureaucratic oversight than a traditional news organization.

And knowing the types of people we’ve had on our online staff (i.e. Brett Roegiers and Megan Taylor), there’s no reason we shouldn’t be producing consistently stellar online content.

One concern I have is the content management system our site is running on. After some severe miscommunication, our well-meaning general manager signed a two-year contract for a very rigid and outdated CMS. The online staff should not have to spend most of its night shoveling stories onto the Web site.

It’s been a year, and I don’t see why we should continue dealing with the problems this CMS is causing. At the same time, it’s a matter of weighing the penalties of breaking the contract and switching to an open-source CMS with keeping the contract and letting the same limitations persist.

I know what I want, but I’m not a dictator, and I need to involve others in the decision-making process.

In the mean time, I’m getting these great online ideas from people who are returning for the fall, and I get so excited to hear them. Then I wonder how long it would take to make it happen or if we can even do them on this CMS, and I worry.

I just want the best for the Alligator. I want to make Alligator.org a journalism juggernaut. I lose sleep over potential setbacks.

All this time, I’ve imagined myself as being the one who could better the online product while maintaining the integrity of the print product. Now, I feel frustrated that maybe I won’t be the one to get the staff or administration to change their print-centric mindset.

I get discouraged, and I worry about my qualifications. I only know multimedia basics, but I guess it is a matter of mindset over skill set. At the same time, I know it’s going to be long and arduous process and that I have to keep my chin up.

I have so many ideas to start improving our Web site, but now I’m starting to feel overwhelmed. There is a big mess to clean up. It’s like I’m Ty Pennington on Extreme Home Makeover, except he’s not sure how many volunteers are going to show up.

Then when I feel down, I think of past editors who did a great job with the paper yet were rigid when it came to innovation and an understanding of the Web site’s potential. That’s the difference. I can see that, and I’m open to so many ideas.

As I’ve been telling prospective staffers, this is the semester for innovation and ideas. I don’t care how crazy it sounds; I will try any idea once. The way I see it, if we try something and it flops, well, we just won’t do it again. This semester is our chance to experiment.

My spirits have been picking up this week, though. One of my section editors agreed to stick around even though it meant turning down an internship.

“I just knew I would be leaving at the wrong time,” she said. “I didn’t want to look at the paper and Web site every day and wish I had been a part of it. I know you’re going to do a good job.”

Those were words I needed to hear.

This evening at the Trib, editor in chief Janet Coats sat in a rolling chair in the center of the newsroom while everyone gathered around for the latest news on layoffs.

She went over the list of who was layed off and why. Then she reexplained that 10 more layoffs were to come in the following weeks and how the newsroom would start reorganizing around its new business model.

It was a hard plan for some people to accept. The fact Janet made up her own crazy new business model for a newspaper without a prototype or any idea where it would take her was frightening to a lot of people. They didn’t seem to like an emphasis on changing the reporting model to focus on immediacy instead of the beat system. That didn’t stop her.

There would be mistakes, she said. And sometimes those in charge would fuck up. But there is nothing else to do.

“We can see a better future for journalism right across the bridge on the other side, but the bridge is on fire, and if we just stand here, we are going to burn up with it.”

A few hands shot up into the air.

“Does this mean the Tribune isn’t bringing in any profits?” someone asked

“The Tribune hasn’t been bringing in profits for a long time … This isn’t about profit margins anymore … We weren’t even in the black this year.”

“How is this new model going to affect our competition with The St. Petersburg Times?”

That set Janet off on quite a diatribe.

First, she said people needed to stop thinking of the Times as competition. She said she understood that it’s hard to think that way when the paper is right across the Bay, but that it is the truth. Not every story will be covered and it won’t be covered in the same way the SPT will cover it. The Trib simply doesn’t have the resources for the old business model.

“I hope (The St. Petersburg Times) keeps doing more of the same,” she said. “I’d like to see them try and do it with a reduced staff. It will only make us stronger.”

Then she dropped the reality bomb:

“People need to stop looking at TBO.com as an add on to The Tampa Tribune,” she said. “The truth is that The Tampa Tribune is an add on to TBO.”

Wow. Someone said that? And that someone was the editor in chief? But wait… there’s more.

She continued from this point, saying she wasn’t sure, but that this had to be a step in the right direction. If we don’t move, she said, newspapers will continue their “death spiral - because that’s what this is.”

She compared newspapers to the music industry. Having increased access to music has undermined the corporate giants of the music industry. They are not making money, but demand is just as high if not higher than it ever has been.

That’s how the news is, she said. There is a high demand for it, but with abundant access to it, it’s time to rethink how we can carve out a niche. Her idea? Hyperlocal journalism.

A sports reporter in the Tallahassee bureau was layed off for no other reason other than the fact that it didn’t make sense to keep a full-time staff member there. The layoff was purely geographic. It’s better to keep one more reporter in Tampa than a sports reporter in a town about four hours north of Tampa.

Now there will be more of an emphasis on the hyperlocal and giving the community news about itself. If they want national news, they have several national news sources to get it. Instead, the Trib should be used to give the community something they can’t get from the NY Times or WaPo. Give them their news.

Through most of this meeting, I just wanted to shout, “Amen!” and “You go girl!” because Janet understands what’s up. She can see the trend in the industry: Innovate or obliterate. She stressed more than several times that if newspapers don’t change then NEWSPAPERS WILL DIE.

It’s hard, she admitted. Sometimes she feels temptation to get out of this business and join PricewaterhouseCoopers where she can have a decent salary and lifestyle. But then she thinks of the role of a news organization, and she knows she could never do that.

“This is who I am,” Janet said. “If you asked me who I am, I would first respond that I’m a journalist - probably before I even said I’m a mother.”

Janet believes in the news industry. She believes in holding government, media and the public accountable. And she knows there is not another job that makes such a huge difference and weilds such power. News organizations offer society so much, and that is why she cannot take another job - because journalism is her calling, and she knows there is nothing else she could ever imagine herself doing.

“It’s worth fighting for,” Janet said.

Out of all her quoteable moments, those were the words that stuck with me. It was that powerful statement that conveyed the hope, faith and prayers of all journalists worldwide. That maybe this industry can’t be demolished because of its importance and that maybe our love and passion for it could be enough to keep it running.

Well, it’s going to take more than love and passion. That love and passion must move us to find solutions to keep our industry, our jobs and our identities alive and well. Still, it’s going to take passionate people like Janet Coats to figure it out.

People might be angry or frightened by what Janet is saying, but she’s right, and they need to start recognizing that. She is doing this because she cares. That woman is not only carrying the burdens of an entire newsroom on her shoulders, but the burdens of a community entitled to quality news. And I know she’s taking the right steps.

On my way out of the newsroom, I saw Janet hobbling on her crutches (she broke her ankle) on her way to the elevator and talking to someone. I wanted to tell her how much I supported what she did, but I didn’t want to interupt. Plus, I’m just an intern. But if I had the chance, I would have said this:

Janet, you’re my hero, and I think this is worth fighting for too.