Breaking News: Red and Black Tweets Staff Walk Out

Student newspaper top editors, staff leave newspaper

Athens, GA (Grady NewSource) – Top editors and members of the University of Georgia’s student newspaper staff walked out on Wednesday, according to a tweet on the newspaper’s official twitter account.

“The @redandblack‘s top editors and members of its staff walked out of the newspaper building this afternoon for the last time,” reads a message posted shortly before 7 p.m. on the newspaper’s official account, @RedandBlack. The message was written by a spin-off account @RedandDead815 and re-transmitted through the newspaper’s official account.

The Red and Dead movement has started it’s own Web site, where a statement claiming to be from Polina Marinova, a University student and Editor-in-Chief of the paper, reads in-part:

In less than a month, The Red & Black has hired more than 10 permanent staff with veto power over students’ decisions.

But what’s most alarming to me is that there was no input from The Red & Black student staff about any of these changes.

[The Red and Black] is no longer a place where lessons can be learned without “serious repercussions.” We don’t believe that is a learning environment.

 

Earlier this month, the head of the Journalism Department at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication Kent Middleton sent a note to the school’s faculty about changes coming to the paper.

“The R&B board approved [August 4] restoring print to five days per week and appointing a professional editorial director, new marketing and product managers, a multimedia director, a business manager and a creative director,” he says in the e-mail.

Excerpts from the e-mail outline some of those hired:

Harry Montevideo remains publisher, sharing oversight of advertising, distribution and editorial with R&B board member Ed Stamper, Grady advertising ’78, who is a retired businessman. Stamper has worked at The Red & Black this summer, leading the paper’s efforts to engage readers by redirecting and restructuring.

Ed Morales will be editorial director, assisted by Erin France, recently regional and health reporter at the Athens Banner-Herald.

Dan Roth becomes creative director to oversee print and online design and print production. Roth was recently with the UGA archives, following employment at Kudzu Graphics in Athens.

Brent McCullough becomes multimedia director, including oversight of video and production. McCullough has worked with publishing houses and has taught.

Vance and Cheri Leavy, creators of Bulldawg Illustrated and great friends of Grady, are volunteering time to direct marketing and product management, including launch of a freshman mobile app and a reinvigorated Ampersand magazine.

Carolyn Crist, Grady grad, Grady graduate student and former R&B editor-in-chief, will   be a part-time assistant editorial director in charge of recruiting students.

The paper is hiring two new advertising account managers, bringing the total to three.

 

Despite the Red and Dead statement claiming hired professionals had veto power over students, Middleton’s e-mail outlines a friendlier relationship between students and staff:

The editorial director will consult with student editors daily, advising students before publication on important stories. Student editors retain final editorial authority. Most advising in the past has been after publication.

Grady NewSource is working to confirm the authenticity of posts made by Red and Dead. We have made calls into the Red and Black newsroom and to staff members.

**This is a developing story. Refresh this page for the latest from Grady NewSource

Grady NewSource’s Mamie Shepherd and David Hurst contributed to this report

 

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  • Show Comments (6)

  • Dean Jameson

    From the memos I’ve read, it seems Middleton is not being truthful.

  • John Knox

    James, I would like to know why the “[sic]” is in: “[The Red and Black] is no longer a place where lessons can be learned [sic] without “serious repercussions.” We don’t believe that is a learning environment.” The AJC blog http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-blog/2012/08/15/uga-red-black-staff-walks-out-today-in-protest-is-it-now-red-dead/?cxntfid=blogs_get_schooled_blog quoted this same sentence without using “[sic],” and I can’t find anything wrong with it grammatically. Often, “[sic]” is used as a pointed way of making fun of the quotee’s lack of education, a way of telling the reader whose side your own. As soon as I saw this I thought, “Ok, sounds like Grady NewSource is going to be giving biased coverage of this story.” I hope that’s not true. By the way, if you want to find an egregious [sic]-worthy misspellling, check out the “Expectations of Editorial Director at The Red and Black” memo of 8/15/12. The author of that memo doesn’t know how to spell “libel.”

    • James Brierton

      Dr. Knox,
      The inclusion of “[sic]” in no way was meant to be bias or degrading towards the author of the quote. During the construction of our piece yesterday we thought there was an accidental mistake within the quote but under further review there is not. Thus we are removing “[sic]” from our article. We apologize for the error and any inconvenience this may have caused.
      James Brierton

      • John Knox

        Thanks, James. I made my own typo: “you’re on,” not “your own” [double sic] Geez, I need more sleep.

  • Lindsey Cook

    Please read this drafted memo from the board of The Red & Black: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3jBKFhghgZzMjNEa2pUd04xRWM/edit?pli=1

    Our website also has information.

  • C. Mason Taylor

    Hi. It seems like you may have missed the memo, scanned and published over at Red and Dead’s website.

    Here’s the link: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3jBKFhghgZzMjNEa2pUd04xRWM/view?pli=1&sle=true

Comments are closed.

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