So here was the deal: A professor at tiny LaSalle University in Philadelphia got into trouble for using exotic dancers in a business seminar last month. The college paper prepared an article about the incident but was ordered to hold the story pending the school’s official investigation.
That next week, the story broke elsewhere and then went national. The student paper again prepared to run the story on page one. Again, the administration ordered the story held.
Finally, the Dean of Students gave permission to run the story. But there was a catch, reports Melissa Dribben of the Philadelphia Inquirer:
The dean said the story should run “below the fold” – on the lower half of the front page, which cannot be seen from a vending box or in a stack of newspapers.
“I half expected it,” [LaSalle Collegian editor Vinny Vella] said. Twice before, he had been instructed to run unflattering stories below the fold — one about a university administrator accused of embezzlement and another about a student charged with murder. This time, however, he said, “We felt the university was trying to control us too much.”
So what did Vinny and his staff do? They ran the story below the fold, as ordered. But with a twist.
Photo by Sharon Gekoski-Kimmel of the Philadelphia Inquirer
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The tiny text floating in that big sea of white says:
See below the fold
Brilliant! Granted, the douchebags in LaSalle’s administration will probably fire the entire newspaper staff. But still. This is the way you do it.
I only hope there are some good j-schools out there with scholarships, just waiting to catch the Collegian staffers on the rebound.
I also think the administration should be forced to sit through seminars on transparency and freedom of the student press.
A seminar without exotic dancers, perhaps.
Find the Philadelphia Inquirer story here.
Find the Collegian A1 story here.
Thanks to Chris Grimm of the Peoria Journal Star for the tip this afternoon.
Bold move. Bolder even to inform circulation to put the stacks in with the lower fold facing out. The “below the fold” rule would have still been obliged.
BRILLIANT!
Bahahahahaha!! Way to go. I don’t think the staff at the newspaper is fretting about how to get another job. People will be begging for them.
This is why all journalists should have a little smart-ass in them. Awesome job!
As a former college newspaper editor, I say bravo. If we had gotten that kind of bullshit I can only hope we would done something similar.
One thing worth noting from the Inquirer story:
“Vella, who plans a career in journalism, said he did not know how the school would react to Thursday’s rebellious issue, his last as editor.”
I’m guessing that means he’s graduating and that he wasn’t given the heave-ho by the administrators at LaSalle. Kind of a final middle finger salute before he walked out the door, not that there wasn’t good reason to do it. But he also didn’t have a lot to lose either.
ANTI-BULLYING WIN
Cool, but if he was going for a fireable offense, why not just ignore the order to put it below the fold?
John,
Vinny is a junior and will be graduating next May. Taking on the role of editor-in-chief is a huge task that no one wants to take on two years in a row.