How to answer the question “Should I go to Grad School?” when your journalism students ask it

The question in the headline has come up a lot recently, both on the Filak Furlough Tour and from my own students. The way some folks talk about grad school, it sounds like a way to delay life a bit more, or at least push back some of those student loans. For others, it’s an opportunity to become part of a cadre of lifelong learners, who will some day become the “sage of the stage” themselves at a fine institution of higher learning. Reality, as is usually the situation, will vary on a case by case basis.

As I have told my students repeatedly about so many things, you don’t want to look at me for an example when it comes to making a decision about grad school.

At the time, I had about a year’s experience under my belt as a part-time night desk reporter at the Wisconsin State Journal. When I asked if that position could become a full-time job, the answer was less than encouraging. Even more, every job that I wanted to apply for required about three years of newsroom experience.

The job market stunk and I had one actual offer from a newspaper in Kirksville, Missouri, which would have paid me less than I was making as a cashier and grease monkey back home at the Mobil station. Even worse, the paper was terrible, the publisher was chain-smoking during my interview and the job came with no insurance benefits.

At the time, if you kept up with school and didn’t stop being a full-time student, you could stay on your parents’ insurance until you were 25. Also, my boss at the State Journal offered to kind of weld two part-time positions together and give me nearly full-time hours, but not the benefits or a true salary. Add that with the potential to teach a college class, already knowing the area and figuring that I’d finish a master’s in two years, I went for it. It turned out fine in the end, but to explain the whole process requires several beers and a non-disclosure agreement.

Based on what I’ve seen others do over the years, here are some helpful questions you might want to consider if you’re thinking of grad school or to ask anyone who asks if they should consider this path:

ARE YOU CHANGING FIELDS? This is the easiest one to figure out. If you got your degree in journalism, but you took a class in computer coding, psychology or biomedical engineering and found your muse, grad school makes sense. The goal of any form of education that you are going to pay ridiculous money for is to teach you something of value that you can use somehow. Usually that means it helps you get a job. I wouldn’t hire a welder to do journalism or a journalist to do welding, so making sure you have field-specific education makes sense.

IS THERE A SPECIALTY YOU DIDN’T GET IN YOUR UNDERGRAD? In some cases, you find that you want to really dig into a specific area of a field. A “regular” journalism degree might include one class on graphic design or 3D rendering or something that really piques your interest and you only have a base-level understanding of that topic. Going to a different place for grad school where they specialize in that might make a lot of sense. I often make the case that students who go here and find that they really like design or graphic arts in media might do well to get a master’s in that area at Ball State, which has a TON of great profs and resources in this area.

IS THERE A FINANCIAL BENEFIT TO THE EXTRA DEGREE? The question of if a higher-level degree helps or hurts a candidate varies widely based on the field and the employer. However, if there is a clear-cut financial value to getting this upper-level degree, it makes sense to bite the bullet now and go for it.

Case in point, when my mom was teaching, salary bumps were determined in “steps” and “lanes.” If I recall correctly, each step was based on years of experience while the lanes were determined by level of education. Hopping into a higher-ed “lane” got you more money faster. Mom still had to take credits to keep up with something else related to her contract, but she never got a master’s, despite probably having more credits than I have now with a Ph.D. She mentioned more than once if she had just gone for it earlier in her career, the master’s would have really turbocharged her earning power.

If you know that’s the case, or if your company is paying for it in hopes of paying you more when you get it, go for the grad gusto.

DO YOU WANT TO TEACH COLLEGE AT SOME POINT? When I got my master’s it meant I could teach at a college or university in my area of expertise. Many of my family members were teachers and I thought I would like to be like them and help people learn, so the master’s was a smart call. That said, my boss in Missouri told me that the Ph.D. was basically the “union card” for getting a stable, tenure-worthy job, so if I wanted to do this for the rest of my life, I probably should bite the bullet and get the doctorate done.

Today, master’s degrees are fine for both adjunct teaching and a lot of universities have opened up teaching faculty roles that don’t require the full collection of alphabet soup after your name. That said, the master’s is the “you must be at least this tall to ride the ride” measurement, so if standing in front of a room trying to explain the difference between “farther” and “further” or why you spell the word “lead” L-E-D-E, grad school makes sense.

ARE YOU RUNNING TO SOMETHING OR AWAY FROM SOMETHING? This gets a bit deeper on the personal end, but it’s an important question to ask. I often ask this of the kids who come back to see me when they’re about 25 and they say something like, “I think I’m going to grad school” or “I think I should change jobs” or “Do you think the circus is hiring?” When a quarter-life crisis hits, a massive change in life seems like the best idea, which is why I ask them this question.

Change bothers me a lot, just because of who I am and how I feel about it. That said, I know some changes are better than others. I can also attest to the importance of understanding WHY you’re changing something, which comes down to the question above. If you are running toward something (pay raise, new educational opportunities) and the grad school question comes up, that is a good change. If you’re running away from something (I don’t want to be an adult, I’m scared of getting a job that I’ll hate) and the grad school question comes up, it’s probably not a great idea.

It never hurts to ask, “Why are you considering doing this?” and then try to figure out which way you’re running.

ARE YOU GAINING MOMENTUM OR BURNING YOURSELF TO A CRISP? When I was growing up, taking a break anywhere before the completion of all of your schooling was considered verboten. The thinking was, “If you don’t go straight from high school to college (or college to master’s or whatever), you’re never going to go back.” And for a lot of people I know, that turned out to be true.

That said, concepts like “a gap year” never really existed as a positive opportunity to plan and recharge. The “keep moving ahead” approach also conflated the idea of continual motion with positive outcomes.

I truly believe in momentum, and if you don’t, go watch this recap of the 1993 Bills/Oilers game. Thus, if you’re in the zone when it comes to studying, learning and knocking out homework, great. Keep rolling. I also believe in the concept of burnout, so if school to this point has turned you into a charcoal briquette, pouring more work on top of yourself for meager/no pay while adding to your student loan debt and living in what passes for student housing these days makes no sense.

WHAT IS THE FLIP SIDE OF THE GRAD SCHOOL COIN? Instead of saying “Should I go to grad school?” consider asking “What will I do if I DON’T go to grad school?” In other words, what’s the other side of the coin on this one.

I’m a big fan of pro-con lists in making big life decisions and I’m also a big fan of not getting myopic on a choice being either/or. It’s not “grad school or no grad school” but rather “grad school or (OTHER PLAN).” In approaching it this way, you can figure out what else might be out there and avoid thinking of grad school as the only lifeboat off the Titanic.

I’m sure there are many other good questions to ask, but these should comfortably get you out of the “deer in the headlights” mode and toward making a solid decision, or helping someone else make a solid decision.

 

Dealing with interview subjects and memory lapses in telling your stories (A Throwback Post)

In discussing interviewing today in class, a student asked me a question that should bother more folks than it probably does:

“What if a source is wrong about something, but it’s not a big factual thing you can check? What do you do?”

It’s a good question, in that I’m sure I’ve told the same story 10,001 times to various classes with variations on a theme. In some cases, I’m often wondering if I’m accurately remembering the car I was driving when I went to the scene of a shooting, the editor who told me to “check on that fatality” that turned out not to be dead or a dozen other things that pretty much anybody involved might remember in some other way, but in no way does a big book of facts help settle the issue.

Case in point: This Christmas, I was at a family gathering where the time I somehow volunteered my dad to be a grade school soccer coach came up. The story was that Dad agreed to go to a meeting where this whole thing would be discussed and he then agreed to coach with a bunch of other dads.

The memory I had was of Dad putting on his nice brown suit to go to this meeting, where it turned out all the other dads were told that they’d be playing the game a bit. So my dad, being the awesome guy he is/was, ended up playing a bit in his dressed up clothes. To me, that story was burned in my head, as I remembered him coming home sweaty and carrying his coat. It also was a great touchstone for me about how much Dad loved me, in that he’s out there banging around a soccer ball in his good suit.

Dad looked at me and said, “That never happened.”

I explained my memory about it and said, “I know it happened because of (XYZ).”

He said, “No, that never happened that way. I never played soccer in a suit. I don’t know where you’re getting that from…”

We both immediately turned to Mom as the arbiter, and she couldn’t remember any of this, so for the rest of the night, I kept thinking, “I know I’m right” and I’m sure my Dad thought the same thing, too.

The point is, not everyone remembers everything the right way, so what happens when you’re supposed to tell stories that revolve around facts and not everyone agrees with what those are?

Here’s a look at how to help work through that issue:

 

How to avoid letting a source’s memory lapses or outright lies destroy your stories

I’ve made a point of telling anyone who will listen that if they need ANYTHING from me in terms of content to help their students or their student newsrooms, all they have to do is ask. Thus, the following request came from a fellow journalism teacher:

Do you have any great lessons or content on how to analyze if a source, esp a source for a profile, is lying or misrepresenting information (either purposefully or due to memory erosion)?

It’s difficult to know for sure when someone is lying or if there are memory gaps that make for some problematic moments within the story you want to tell. As I’ve often told folks in my classes, it’s not always about being perfectly successful in your efforts when it comes to something like this, but rather avoiding the things that can really screw you over that matters most.

With that said, here are a few things beginning reporters can do to mitigate disaster when dealing with a source that might not have the facts 100% perfect:

GET A SENSE OF THE SOURCE: One of the primary reasons I tell students they need to conduct interviews in person is so they can capture more observational elements to add color and feel to their pieces. A good side benefit of being in person is you can get the vibe of the source and decide how much you really want to trust them.

Some sources are great at hyping themselves up like they’re trying to sell you the Bass-O-Matic ’76. Others do some great “humblebrag” stuff that really can sound like they’re important and vaguely decent people. In spending time with these people, you can find out who is likely worth trusting and who you can’t trust any further than you’d trust a pyromaniac at a gas station.

The one thing to understand is that there is a crucial difference between people who are full of crap and people who literally have lost track of things over time. Honestly, I have told a number of stories over and over again to the point that I’m not sure if they’re perfectly accurate, slightly altered or complete BS. (I am grateful, however, that I found support for the famous “Olde Un Theatre” robbery and the “Mraz, where’s Mrefund?” headline.)

I had one student who SWORE she wrote an obituary that had a particularly awkward headline on it. I found the piece, with the headline she described, and it wasn’t her byline. Maybe she wrote the headline, or edited the piece or something else, but it wasn’t her byline. This is why it’s important to fact check basically everything when it comes to people telling you stuff that you plan to use in your work.

Once you get that vibe, you can do more work with the questions you have and the level of insistence you enact when dealing with your questions.

IN GOD WE TRUST, ALL OTHERS MUST PAY CASH: Even in profiles, there is a benefit to becoming what I call a “non-denominational skeptic” about the information you received. Whether you like the source or you wouldn’t believe them if they came into your house, soaking wet, and told you, “It’s raining out there,” apply a similar level of rigor to your questioning. This is particularly important when it comes to things you really plan to focus on as part of your story.

Let’s say you’re doing a profile on a business person who turned his life around after a rather rough patch in his 20s and now helps ex-convicts find work. You likely are going to ask what was the turning point that got this guy on the right path, and here’s the answer you get:

“I wasn’t a good person back then. I was arrested for a series of burglaries back in ’85 around the Cleveland area. I was supposed to get 6 years, but the judge gave me 12 and shipped me off to Folsom prison, way across the country. Being that far from home, in a prison like that, well, it changes a man. About 50 prisoners were killed while I was there for those 12 years and I always thought I’d be one. I told God, ‘If I ever get out of here alive, I’ll make my life right for whoever else gets out of here.’”

Sounds compelling and amazing. Now, how much of that is stuff you NEED to check? A goodly amount:

  • Check arrest records from “the Cleveland area” in 1985 and find out if this guy was ever arrested.
  • Check court records to find out if he did get sentenced to 12 years.
  • Check prison records to find out if he went to prison, let alone Folsom
  • Check prison records (and others) to find out if 50 people REALLY got killed out there from about 1985 to 1997.

This is just smart reporting and it will help you fill in some of the key details about the source’s live. Also, the more of this you can verify, the better off you are. The less you can verify, the less you should trust this source.

Clearly, you can’t verify if he “wasn’t a good person” or if he had a conversation with God. (“Hello, St. Peter? Yes, this is Vince Filak with the Dynamics of Writing blog. Is God there? I need to confirm a conversation He had back in 1985 or so…”) But you can check out enough stuff to feel like you’re not getting fed a line.

TRUST, BUT VERIFY: Another key way to poke back at people is to show interest and engagement with their stories while offering them ways to help verify this information for you.

If you’re interviewing someone and they say, “I was amazed when I received my Silver Star for my tour in Vietnam, but I really was just doing the same job as everybody else…” you could check a database when you get done with the interview. However, you could also try this approach during the interview:

“That is truly incredible! Could you show me the medal? I’d love to see it!”

or

“Do you have any pictures of the ceremony? My editor would love to put something visual with the story!”

If the answer is yes, you’re in decent shape. If the answer is a dodge or something like, “Nah, I threw it away.” then you are probably going to want to push back a bit more with stuff like, “So where was the incident that took place that got you considered for the honor?” or “I would love to talk to anyone who was in your platoon at the time for more on this…”

In other words, you’re giving the person an opportunity to verify this stuff for you. If they can’t or won’t, tread cautiously.

WEIGH COST VERSUS VALUE: Journalism in a lot of ways is like catching sand in a sieve. You’re never going to catch everything, but you want to make sure you don’t lose too much of the small stuff or any of the big stuff. To that end, you want to weigh the cost versus value of the amount of work you’re doing on any particular fact-finding dig.

Let’s say you’ve got a source that was paralyzed from the waist down during a car accident in high school. After that, he went into a deep depression, but found God and now goes on speaking tours throughout the country to explain how to overcome obstacles in life. The source tells you this:

“I was driving a 1979 Ford Thunderbird with this great V-8 351 Cleveland in it when I had the accident. The truck that hit me mangled that car like you wouldn’t believe. I honestly feel that if I had been driving something smaller, I’d be dead.”

The guy shows you a picture of the wreck, so you can see what happened to the car. He’s clearly paralyzed or has been faking it well for decades. The opinion is his that he might have died in a Toyota Camry. is it really important to fact check whether that car had the 351 Cleveland engine in it or if it might have had a 302 or a 351 Windsor? Probably not.

Look at what matters most and make sure those things are solid. The random fringe stuff can be checked if you have time and if it’s easy. However, it’s not going to behoove you to go plowing through thousands of DOT and Ford Factory Sheets to figure out what engine landed in what car in a case like this.

RESEARCH BEFORE, FACT CHECK AFTER: The goal of quality research in advance of talking to a source is to make sure you ask good questions and that you don’t get turned around if the source tries to BS you. The goal of a quality fact check is to make sure what the source told you makes sense before you publish the piece.

You then can decide to what degree you want to keep certain bits of information and what degree you feel the need to actively fact check with in a story. Ted Bridis, a fellow journalism prof, shared this example with a bunch of us to outline the ways in which a “personal tale” can have enough bullcrap in it to fertilize the back 40 acres. The writer of the piece literally takes each element that this source outlines as “fact” and checks it out with people after the fact to show what is clearly not true and why it matters.

If you ask the right questions, you’ll find that many sources will try to snow you less, as it’s clear you aren’t coming to them fresh off a turnip truck. However, there are still people out there who will try to convince you that they were the one who convinced Lin-Manuel Miranda to go with Hamilton instead of “Aaron Burr: The Death Metal Musical!”

That’s where the fact check really comes in.

FIND OTHER PEOPLE TO HELP: I remember certain things about my childhood that might or might not be true. Some of them, Mom or Dad might have an angle on (and judging by how we kept pretty much everything I ever did in the file cabinet in my folks’ back room at the house, we might actually have physical proof of that thing).

REPORTER: “Hey, I was talking to your mom and she said you never scored a basket in your fifth-grade season. She still has all the box scores. You did almost foul out of nine games, thought.”
ME: “I’ll be darned. I swear I hit a basket at least once. Anyway, I’m sure that foul out thing is right, as I played basketball like Danny from ‘Grease’ that year…”

If you can get verification from people who would likely know, it’s probably a safe bet you can go with that information. If you can’t or the information seems to contradict, go back to the original source for verification:

REPORTER: “Hey, I was talking to your mom and she said she thinks that story about Mrs. Schutten screaming at your class was from fifth grade, not third grade. She said the woman taught you in both grades. I just wanted to know if you’re sure on what you told me.”
ME: “Oh, yeah… I forgot that she got us twice… After I had Sr. Kenneth in fourth grade, the beatings we all took from that nun basically scrambled my memory for some things…  Mom’s probably right, then.”

The goal of asking other people for things is to help solidify things that are important to telling your story. In some cases, you’ll have conflicting reports from key sources and it’s up to you to determine who you believe and how important those conflicting elements are.

A great example of this is in the book “Loose Balls” by Terry Pluto, where he outlines the wild life of the old American Basketball Association. He tells this one story about Marvin “Bad News” Barnes and how he missed a team flight to Norfolk, where Barnes and the Spirits of St. Louis were supposed to play the Virginia Squires.

Barnes blows off the flight and figures he’ll catch a later one, but it turns out he missed the last commercial flight to Norfolk. So he chartered a plane (something unheard of at the time) and got down there at the last minute. He shows up to the locker room with like 10 minutes to go before game time wearing a full-length fur coat, carrying a couple bags of McDonald’s burgers and a big smile. He opens his coat to reveal his uniform like he was changing from Clark Kent to Superman and declares, “Have no fear, BB (his nickname) is here.”

The story was verified by a number of people who all told essentially the same story. However, people deviated on one detail. During the game, the pilot supposedly showed up in the team huddle and demanded to be paid for the flight, so someone had to run back to the locker room and get Marvin’s checkbook so he could write the guy a check. The amount of the check varied widely from about $700 to more than $1,500, depending on who told it.

Pluto recognizes that the story perfectly captures the insanity that was Marvin Barnes and this team of weirdos. He knows that it is mostly true and pretty solid in its confirmation. He also knows people want to know what it cost to do this little stunt and that he doesn’t have the goods. He acknowledges that by including that information and the variations in his chapter. Something like that is easy enough to do if you have a few inconsistencies that don’t undermine the larger truth you’re trying to convey.

THE DUTY TO REPORT VERSUS THE DUTY TO PUBLISH: No matter how much effort a reporter puts into a story, there is never a guarantee that the story is absolutely right. Mistakes happen, memories fade, BS intrudes and more. The goal is to try to put forth the best version of reality, regardless of how difficult that is.

This is where we separate the duty to report and the duty to publish. As journalists, we need to ask questions and poke at facts to figure out what happened and why our readers should care. Not every effort we make in that realm will give us the results we feel comfortable with. To that end, we have to be OK with the decision not to publish something if we’re not 100% certain on the issue.

It’s better to have something missing or come up a little thin in a story than it is to publish something that is flat-out wrong.

A great example of this is an article Bethany McLean, a financial journalist, wrote in 2001 about Enron. The company basically had stock that just kept going up and up and up for no real reason and the company big wigs couldn’t explain to her in any meaningful way how money moved through the company. She knew something wasn’t right, but she wasn’t 100% sure of what it was.

 

In several interviews, she noted that there were several partnerships that were doing deals with Enron that appeared to be owned or operated by Enron executive Andy Fastow. She saw them disclosed, but she never mentioned them in her article. In the documentary, “The Smartest Guys in the Room,” she explained:

“There were these partnerships that were run by Andy Fastow that were doing business with Enron and they were disclosed in the company’s financial statements, but I didn’t mention them in the story because I thought, ‘Well, the accountants and the board of directors have said this is OK so I must be crazy to think there’s anything wrong with this.’ The story I ran was actually pretty meek. The title was “Is Enron Overpriced?” (because) in the end, I couldn’t prove that it was anything more than an overvalued stock and I was probably too naive to suspect there was anything more than that.”

She realized she had the duty to dig in hard on this. When she couldn’t make it work perfectly on the first pass, she understood that she didn’t want to screw this up, so she went with what she could prove.

As it turned out, the partnerships were a large component of a major financial fraud and the company was a house of cards, things McLean and others found out after she put out that first article. However, at the time, she couldn’t go beyond what she had, so she stuck to what she could prove and lived to fight another day.

The ‘Exploring Mass Communication’ textbook is officially available. Give it a look to get a free T-shirt (and more)

“And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the book swaddled in recyclable brown paper, lying in a cardboard box…”

I don’t know if I can fully describe the feeling I had when my kid lugged this box into the house recently and said, “It’s heavy as hell. It must be a book thing.”

It was, and at that precise moment, “Exploring Mass Communication” became real for me.

Never mind that I’d seen links to digital versions on Amazon and Sage’s website.

Never mind that I’d seen cover mock-ups, proof editions and various Vantage versions.

Never mind that I had put together an hour-long presentation to Sage reps on the book about a month earlier.

That box was proof this whole thing wasn’t a St. Elsewhere Kid/Fever Dream situation. I wanted to just scream and cry and jump around and roll around in the snow while cradling a copy of it.

I quickly reached out to the folks at Sage and the conversation went something like this:

Me: I got my copies of the book! Can I tell people it’s out now?
Them: Yes!
Me: You sure?
Them: Yes.
Me: It’s not gonna be like last time, right? This is a real “go for launch” for the book?
Them: Yes… In fact, if you could write a blog post to tell people to adopt it for their classes, that would be great!
Me: Um… No…

I never wanted the blog to be a book-pimping tool because a) nobody wants to read that kind of stuff and b) I can’t promote myself worth a damn. Other people’s accomplishments, student media successes, good causes and great organizations, yes.

Me promoting myself, no.

That doesn’t mean I’m not ridiculously excited about this book and what I think it can do for people. Here is the link to the Sage page for the print text and digital version that lays out all the features, options and fun stuff we poured into “Exploring Mass Communication.” When I read it, even I was like, “Damn… I did all that?”

I have to say, though, the coolest thing about this whole thing is the Sage Vantage system. This is honestly a real game-changer for anyone teaching any course with any Sage book.

When I first heard about Vantage, every conversation went like this:

Me: I want to do (X).
Sage: Um… You can’t. It won’t translate into Vantage.

Now that I see how it works, I totally get why my weird ideas needed to be streamlined. Here is a 90-second video that explains Vantage. It impresses the hell out of me. The knowledge checks, the plug-and-play with any LMS, the ease of grading and more are all part of Vantage and this book was written specifically to work with that system.

That’s about as much self-promotion as I can handle: Bragging about someone else’s tools that make my textbook a “immersive digital learning experience.”

I have no idea how to tell you that I love this book and that I want you to love it too. So, I’m just going to offer you a bunch of bribes to make your life better in some way and perhaps get you to look at the textbook/digital-immersive-learning-experience thing.

 

BRIBE 1: REQUEST A REVIEW COPY OF THE BOOK AND GET A FREE “FILAK FURLOUGH” T-SHIRT

The folks at Sage are looking for people who want to adopt the book for a class. Me? I need to look cool in front of my publisher while simultaneously moving an excess supply of T-shirts.

So here’s the deal: If you’re teaching an intro to mass media/mass com class and you would be willing to take a look at the book, hit me up on the contact link here and I’ll get you on “Staci’s Magic List of Wonder” for a free copy. (Most folks like the digital version with all the Vantage toys to play with. If you’re old school or just need a new coffee coaster, I’m sure we can get you a print text.)

Send me your name, your school and your school email address. Also, send me the size of T-shirt you wear and a snail mail address and I’ll send you a “Filak Furlough Tour T-shirt.” All freebie. I’m covering shipping costs on my end.

(If you are thinking, “Vince, I’d love to see the book, but having your name on my body in any way feels profoundly creepy…” you can feel free to pass on the shirt. I totally get it. I still have trouble hearing my name as a descriptor as in, “Don’t forget to read Filak Chapter 5!”)

The shirts are a result of CustomInk doing an awesome thing and reprinting them after they made a mistake on the back of the first batch. Sage bought a bunch for a promo at its annual sales meeting, which was back in December, so when the reprinted shirts came, it was too late. Thus, I told the the Sage Folks I’d take the shirts and do something positive with them.

Sizes are somewhat limited and first come, first served. They are available while supplies last, but if that many people are that jazzed about this book that I run out of shirts, I might just do another order.

As you can see, I’m a total dork.

 

BRIBE 2: TELL ME WHAT I MISSED AND I’LL WRITE IT FOR YOU ASAP

The key reason I want you to look at the book isn’t to adopt it for your class.

Hyperventilating Breathe GIF - Hyperventilating Breathe Sheldon GIFs

Hang in there, Sage reps… I know this isn’t what you’re used to for a book launch…

My rationale is this: I know that despite five years of my life, 27 edits, five complete reboots, 128 reviews and innumerable prayers to St. Jude (the patron saint of lost causes) for intervention, I probably missed more than a few things in here.

If you have ever written anything, you know that eventually you read it over and over and over until you basically go blind to it. Over the course of this journey, we added, removed, reworked, replaced, added again, removed again and reconfigured everything in here at least twice. That means I need some people to tell me what works and what doesn’t, which is where you call come in.

If you read this thing and see something that needs to be there and isn’t, tell me and I’ll write it for you and post it on the blog. It doesn’t matter how big or how small. I’ll start a complete new section of the blog called “The Exploring Mass Communication Hotline” and post all fresh content to fill in any holes, add any additions, improve on any thin spots and generally augment what you get in the textbook, regardless of if you plan to adopt the thing or not.

I’ll also credit you on the blog. If the book gets picked up for a second edition somewhere in the future, I’ll fix the problem and you’ll be personally thanked in the Acknowledgements section.

People often think I’m kidding when I say stuff like this, but it’s real. Case in point: After the reporting book came out a few years back, a rep got a hold of me and said he had some feedback from a professor. The professor told him that if I had included a section on freelancing, the book would be much better.

So, I got in touch with several former students who were working various aspects of the freelance game and wrote a three-part, 8,000-word series on how freelancing works. I then sent the professor the links to use in the class, even if she hadn’t planned to adopt the book. We then took that series and tweaked it out for an appendix in the second edition. Her response? “This is great, but you’re crazy. Why would you do this for ONE PERSON?”

Well, because you asked. I just like helping folks.

Which leads to…

BRIBE 3: IF YOU TRY THE BOOK AND HATE IT, I’LL HELP YOU PUT YOUR CLASS BACK TOGETHER USING ANY BOOK YOU WANT

I would be honored and humbled if you’d consider my book for your class. Over the past few years, I’ve come to know a lot of great folks I otherwise never would have met if I hadn’t decided to turn my life into a series of book deadlines and giant Post-It Notes.

I use a giant Post-It to keep track of each book I’m working on at any given time. Yes, this was when things clearly got out of hand…

I understand that if you’re trying out my book, it means you’re not entirely happy with the one you’re using or looking for something specific. Nobody just switches books because they’ve got six weeks of stress-free time to kill or because they’re trying to help out a friend. The goal, I assume, is to plug a hole, fill a gap or generally improve upon whatever it is you’ve been sticking with through the last five or six editions.

That said, over the last 27 years of teaching college, I’ve come up with two universal truths:

  1. Rewriting a class for a new textbook is a massive pain in the rear.
  2. I am not everyone’s cup of tea.

In combining these two truisms, I realize I’m asking a lot of anyone who might be considering adopting “Exploring Mass Communication” for a class. In short, it’s like trying out a new hairstyle: It might be awesome or you might spend the next six months saying, “How long until I can get rid of these bangs?”

(I have been bald since I was 20, so I’m mostly guessing at how hair works…)

So, here’s the best deal I have for you: If you find yourself interested in trying this book for your class and it turns out it’s like eating sardine-flavored ice cream for you, I will work with you to rebuild your class in any format using any other mass-com text out there. I will literally fill in gaps, plug the holes and improve SOMEONE ELSE’S TEXTBOOK, based on what you tell me you want so that you can use it to fulfill your needs.

(Cut to a reaction from the offices of Sage…)

The first thought you might have is, “Vince, that’s a cute idea, but I’m using (NAME)’s book and I’m sure you haven’t read it…”

Hold my beer. Here is a sample of what I read in preparation to pitch Sage on this book:

I read everything in that photo at least once, most twice and one three times. I’ve read multiple editions of all of these, and these were just the ones I could still find on Amazon with a quick search of my internet history. That’s not counting the dozen or so other texts I borrowed from people or checked out of the library. In short, I know what’s out there because it informed on what I did or didn’t do when I wrote “Exploring Mass Communication.”

The second thought you might have is, “Vince, this has to be the stupidest thing you’ve ever done. Why would you actively improve your competition?”

Well, to start, it’s not even close to the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. This is comfortably below the “free tequila slammers” night and the “hey, let’s work on a pinball machine’s electric transformer without unplugging the game” situation. You could also ask my wife about the time I bought a beer can collection if you want to get me in real trouble…

Second, in answer to your question, I am constantly driven by two basic needs:

  1. Help people
  2. Make things work right

This is why Amy hates it when I see a broken lawnmower or vacuum cleaner on the side of the road. She knows I’m grabbing it and fixing it, even though we have no need for another lawnmower or vacuum cleaner. It’s also why I have a bunch of dead pinball machines in my game room and a garage full of dilapidated furniture: I’m bound and determined to fix them.

The whole reason I got into the textbook game was to help people. That’s why I did the blog, the Corona Hotline, the “Filak Furlough Tour” and pretty much everything else. To me, there is nothing that is more gratifying than feeling like someone who came to me with a problem actually left my presence with a solution.

When kids come to my office for help, they often say, “I’m sorry to bother you, but…” I immediately disabuse them of that notion: “You’re never a bother. Whatever you need is more important than what I am doing right now. Helping you is the best part of my day.” And I mean it.

So, that’s the pitch: Get a free copy of a book, get free stuff for doing so and get free help even if you don’t want to adopt the book. It should be clear from this proposal why I never went into sales and marketing.

In any case, operators are standing by, so thanks for being part of this journey with me.

Best,

Vince (a.k.a. The Doctor of Paper)

 

 

 

How to react when a student asks, “Which classes do I really need to attend?” (A Throwback Post)

A good friend and fellow professor inspired this Throwback Post, after a student reached out to her near the beginning of the semester with this request:

“I have a lot going on this semester. Can you tell me which classes are the most important so I can try to attend those?”
She politely responded to the student that she could not classify any one class period as more or less important than any other. That level of restraint means she needs to be involved in the next round of global peace talks.
Of course, the rest of us started chiming in with some of the better dumb things we’ve been asked or told over the years by students, including one person posting this gem:
I had a student who raised his hand on the first day going — this class is a lot of work. Why? It’s supposed to be a blow off course!
Yup. I’m here just to give you three credits and a side-order of fries…
So without further ado, here’s a look at some potentially useful comebacks for generally stupid questions…

Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions: Journalism Educator edition

Despite my parents’ best efforts, I got addicted to Mad magazine as a kid and fell in love with Al Jaffee’s acerbic wit. I’m sorry, all my former, current and future students…

Al Jaffee probably had a bigger influence on me than most people wished he’d had. The longtime cartoonist for Mad Magazine who died earlier this month at age 102, was both a gifted artist and a gifted humorist.

During his time at the publication, Mad had an amazing collection of talent, and each artist brought their own special vibe to the publication. Paul Coker drew his “horrifying cliches,” movie parodies and single-panel pieces. Sergio Aragones literally filled the magazine with his dialogue-free sketches, as he drew in the margins of the various spreads. Don Martin did some truly ridiculous cartoons, of which my favorite was the detective-wannabe Lance Parkertip, Noted Notary Public.

Jaffee, however, wrote his way into history with his “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions,” which did exactly what the title promised. He’d present one of the dumber questions people tend to ask, and follow it with a series of sarcastic, snide or otherwise snappy responses, intended on laying low the idiot inquisitor.

As a kid, I took to Jaffee’s biting snap-backs like a fish to water, using his style of humor to keep bullies at bay in grade school and dabble in some class-clowning in high school. As I got older, I was told this kind of thing wasn’t age-appropriate for me but hey, if a guy can do this kind of stuff until he’s 102, I’ve got some time left on the clock.

In honor of Jaffee’s passing, here are a few Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions most of us tend to get as journalism educators:

 

“Sorry, I overslept. Did I miss anything important in class today?”

  • “No, we only did a bunch of unimportant stuff, like we do most days.”
  • “No, we just sat here and thought about how much we missed you.”
  • “Yeah, it was the best! We didn’t have to slow down and reexplain everything to this one kid who never pays attention and is constantly missing stuff while he’s Snapchatting the class period away.”

 

“Is this going to be on the test?”

  • “No, I enjoy throwing random facts at you for the sake of seeing how you react. It’s like my own little version of giving a lab rat an electric shock.”
  • “I’m not sure yet, but God forbid you be presented with information that might be valuable in its own right.”
  • “Probably not, because even though I said, ‘You want to write this down, because it’s going to be on the test,’ at least 912 times, I’m still debating how to handle this.”

 

“Why did I get an F on this assignment?”

  • “Because the university hasn’t figured out a way for me to give you anything lower.”
  • “Because given your writing ability, I figured this was as far as you ever got in learning the alphabet.”
  • “I understand that it’s probably a mystery, shrouded in the 20 or so sentences of feedback I wrote at the bottom of your paper, clearly outlining every point deduction.”

 

“Can I get an extension on this paper?”

  • “If you mean you want me to make the paper longer, sure.”
  • “Absolutely, because the six weeks I gave everyone else to accomplish it clearly wasn’t enough time for you to craft your incredibly expansive effort.”
  • “But what will I do in the meantime, as I wait to consume your exquisite prose? How will I pass the time as I await the dawning of your genius?”

 

“Can I do some extra credit to make up some points?”

  • “Given the effort you put into your ‘regular’ credit, giving you extra credit right now would seem to be an exercise in futility.”
  • “Sure, because when I said at the beginning of the year, and at least 12 times since, that the class will offer NO EXTRA CREDIT, I only meant that for other people who didn’t have the chutzpah to ask for it.”

 

“Do I HAVE to take the final exam?”

  • “I lack subpoena power and the university doesn’t equip me with a gun, so I can’t force you to do much of anything. That said, you probably won’t pass the class without at least a decent attempt.”
  • “Given that it won’t save your grade, no matter how well you do, I’d actually prefer you avoid wasting both of our times.”

 

“You know I’m graduating in two weeks, right?”

  • “Well, not if you need this class to do it…”
  • “That puts me in a quandary, as to pass you would mean I gave up on any standard I had for this class whatsoever, but to fail you would mean I’d need to tolerate your pointless presence again for a whole semester. Let me think about how much I hate myself right now and I’ll get back to you.”

 

“Is there ANYTHING I can do to pass this course at this point in the semester?”

  • “Can you invent a time machine and travel back to the start of the term when I told you to make sure you kept up with the reading and the assignments and kick your own ass to make sure you did so? If not, probably not.”
  • “Well, I’d ask for a bribe, but given your performance in class to this point, you’d probably screw that up, too.”

 

“Do you know who my father is?”

  • “Does HE know how to build a time machine to fix things for you? If not, I’m not sure how this is relevant to your grade.”
  • “No, but that’s probably because he found out how poorly you’re doing in school and immediately entered some form of witness protection.”
  • “No, but maybe a “23 and Me” kit could help.”

If any other pathologically stupid questions have come your way and you’d like some snappy answers, feel free to hit me up here and I’ll do my best to put together another list at some point.

Cutting it short: Remember to always check to see if autocorrect correctly corrected your copy

There’s never a good reason to be lazy, particularly when it might lead to a viral moment. A Pizza Hut in Ontario apparently didn’t bother to really read a sign workers posted to let people know the dining room wouldn’t be open. What happened next is now the stuff of legends:

This led to one of the greatest leads ever written, via the New York Post:

No tips required at this pizza shop.

The rule here, as always, is that you can write quickly, but you need to edit slowly. Also, if you aren’t sure that the autocorrect correctly corrected your work, look stuff up.

 

Super Bowl Shuffled Off: The ad game for the big game is seeing big changes

THE LEAD: Even as companies continue to dump ridiculous amounts of money into Super Bowl ad spots, a recent examination of this year’s ad buys has shown a significant shift in who is doing what:

The most interesting thing we found may be who’s not advertising. Gone are the Big Four automakers – Ford, General Motors, Chrysler parent Stellantis and Toyota – which have chosen to dedicate their ad dollars to more tightly targeted marketing campaigns. Only Kia and BMW are stepping up to promote their new electric vehicles, while Volkswagen has advertising lined up to celebrate its 75th anniversary in the U.S.

Also missing this year will be GoDaddy, whose Super Bowl ads have generated buzz over the years. Its management has indicated that the company is exploring other marketing options that create more engagement for their target markets.

Instead, the majority of buys are going to food and beverage companies. The authors of this piece noted that these kinds of things tend to have a much broader appeal across an array of target markets.

In short, a wider range of people can be similarly persuaded about how good M&M’s taste or why Bud is the beer to drink, thus making a mass-market ad worthwhile for these brands.

RISKY BUSINESS: Companies take a huge risk that can amount to more than $20 million to develop, create, shoot and display a 30-second spot. Granted, the ad itself can be teased on social media, shared on YouTube and promoted through various other platforms prior to the game, so it’s no longer just a one-shot wonder.

Also, if you end up hitting a homer, it can live on forever. Just think about Apple’s 1984 ad:

 

Still, if you swing and miss, most of the country is watching and it can be an ugly fall from grace. This is among my all-time ad fails:

Because nothing says, “Hey, buy a car” like misogyny…

SAFETY AND VALUE IN NICHES: Like we’ve talked about before here, audience-centricity is crucial to all forms of media, and the fragmentation of audiences has led to a lot of shifts in media.

A recent demonstration that the old model of general content to a large audience is failing was the recent announcement that The Messenger would be closing after less than a year. The founders of the site planned to do something akin to a “60 Minutes” or major metro paper model, in which it was all things to all people. Clearly that’s not where media consumers are at.

This is what advertisers have known for a while and it’s being reflected in the approach to the Super Bowl ads. Rather than take one giant $20 million whack at a massive win, advertisers are diversifying among various smaller platforms, with smaller ads for smaller audiences. The idea is that with this kind of investment, they can do more with less while avoiding the big risk of a Super Bowl failure.

DOCTOR OF PAPER HOT TAKE: The Super Bowl isn’t hurting for money, so this isn’t a “Titanic is going down” kind of concern. All the ad spots were sold for the ungodly sum of $7 million well before we even knew who would be playing in the game.

That said, this is an alert that there are icebergs out there, and other ships have hit them, so it’s worth taking notice of this situation. Newspapers, which are continuing to self-immolate at the hands of hedge funds, ignored similar warnings when the internet came along. Cable and TV folks didn’t pay as much attention to streaming as they probably should have and are continuing to course correct well after the fact.

It’ll be important to watch the continuing shift moving forward, especially as things change in terms of AI and influencer culture. The one thing media folks who aren’t in advertising forgot about folks in advertising over the years is that ad folks are buying eyeballs. Their loyalty is to that principle, which means you can’t say, “Well, they’ve ALWAYS bought (time/space/impressions) so I’m sure they will again.”

MOMENT OF ZEN: My favorite Super Bowl ad of all time still remains the one for Fidelity, featuring Mr. Britney Spears (Kevin Federline) making fun of his fall from grace. To this day, when Amy or I drift into a daydream on the other, one of us will say to the other, “FEDERLINE! FRIES!” and then laugh hysterically.

A mostly true look at something we jazzed up (A Throwback Post)

With the Super Bowl and awards season in the air, we decided to take a look back at a post about a movie launch during a previous Super Bowl. The “based on a true story” thing is still happening quite a bit these days, from “The Boys in the Boat” to “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.” As much as I love the stories, I find myself occasionally wondering to what degree things were fluffed up a bit for dramatic purposes.

Here’s a peek back at the last time we dug into this:

Based on a true story = We made up some stuff

Amazon spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $14 million during the Super Bowl for a minute-long teaser trailer of “Air,” a movie that tells the story of how Nike came to land Michael Jordan as a client. The Ben Affleck/Matt Damon flick follows a familiar trend these days, as it is “inspired by true events,” which is just a fancy way of saying, “We made up a bunch of stuff.”

Movies like “Elvis,” “Blonde,” and “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” have seen varying levels of post-hoc fact checking that call into question certain parts of the films, with film buffs rebuffing these concerns as mere “dramatization of controversial and contested historical events.” Still, these situations are small potatoes when compared to how some films and limited series have taken liberties with reality.

“Winning Time,” HBO’s look at the late 1970s/early 1980s rise of the L.A. Lakers, created massive amounts of controversy with the way in which it played fast and loose with the truth. Given the relatively recent era in which the events took place, the degree to which sports information is retained and a quality text from which to draw, it seemed almost purposeful that the series got so many things factually wrong, including places, dates, opponents and scores. This isn’t even accounting for how the athletes, including Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar , publicly denounced the way in which they were portrayed.

Even more, Jerry West and his legal team have demanded an apology and retraction for the way in which the series portrayed the Laker legend, noting that the producers engaged in “legal malice.”

The New York Times did a deep dive on the cottage industry that has streaming services building mini-series around actual events, but then jazzing up reality to make life seem cooler than it was. The piece cites West’s portrayal as a “rage-aholic” as one of the more egregious cases of taking liberties with reality. It also points out that Linda Fairstein, the prosecutor in the “Central Park Five” case, is currently engaged in a lawsuit against HBO for its portrayal of her in the series “When They See Us.”

The defamation attorneys the Times quoted made it clear that these cases aren’t always easy to win, because the First Amendment does provide folks with the ability to create fiction based on true people. However, there are limits to this kind of thing:

Sometimes disclaimers are enough to protect a studio from legal liability, especially if they are prominently displayed in the opening credits and offer detail of what has been fictionalized — beyond a generic acknowledgment such as “based on real events,” legal experts say. The First Amendment offers broad protections for expressive works like film and television productions that depict real people by their real names.

But if someone can convincingly claim that he or she was harmed by what screenwriters made up, that is grounds for a strong defamation suit, said Jean-Paul Jassy, a lawyer who works on media and First Amendment cases in Los Angeles.

“A disclaimer is not a silver bullet,” he said.

This is in some ways akin to the way courts have afforded opinion pieces and reviews protection under the fair comment privilege. This allows writers to provide “pure opinion” that cannot be proven true or false without fear of falling afoul of defamation laws. That said, merely stating something is opinion isn’t a silver bullet either.

If you say, “In my opinion, Vince Filak is a lousy professor,” it falls into that opinion realm. It’s stated as such and there’s no way to define “lousy” so that a court could determine if I fit that definition or not. Plus, in defamation suits, the plaintiff (in this case, me) would have to show harm: Did I get fired? Did my classes shrink to the point I had to teach Medieval Basketweaving to maintain the course load in my contract? Did a group of random professors follow me around and mock me to the point I needed therapy? Probably not, so I’m not going anywhere with this.

However, if you say, “In my opinion, Vince Filak stabbed a student in the face with a fork during his 8 a.m. Writing for the Media Class on Feb. 20,” now you’re in trouble. It’s not an opinion, for starters, as we can prove it either happened or didn’t happen. It’s accusing me of a crime, which furthers my case. Plus, if that thing gains steam, I’m likely to get fired.

Writers, editors, producers and directors have always taken SOME liberties with reality when it comes to how they portray real people in fictional or semi-fictional stories. What makes this recent set of efforts more concerning is the degree to which they are bending the truth and the ways in which the fictionalization has the ability to warp public perception of real people in some harmful ways.

As for me, I’m looking forward to “Air” for the bad 1980s clothing and the Affleck/Damon banter that most of their collaborations pull off quite well. I’m also looking to see if anything gets dinged on a fact check, especially because, as anyone with any experience with Michael Jordan will tell you, he’ll take it personally.

Morning Blend and Blurred Lines: How a sponsored-content pitch to Black-owned businesses in Milwaukee fell flat

There is so much wrong with this pitch that I swear I heard a marketing professor’s head explode somewhere in my building…

THE LEAD: WTMJ 4 in Milwaukee apparently saw Black History Month as an opportunity to tell local Black-owned businesses they could be on TV if they agreed to hand over a fistful of C-notes:

Milwaukee’s NBC affiliate TV station stirred up some ill feelings after marketing an opportunity to local Black-owned businesses to appear on a morning program during Black History Month, but only if they were willing to pay $1,000.

WTMJ-TV sent marketing emails to several Black business owners in the area offering an opportunity to appear on “The Morning Blend,” TMJ4’s daily lifestyle program, which airs weekdays at 9 a.m.

Despite looking and acting like a local news program, “The Morning Blend” is actually a sponsored-content program and part of the larger Scripps media brand. It appears in some form or other on stations in Las Vegas, Tampa and Milwaukee, each of which Scripps owns. The sponsored-content format is not unique to Scripps, and means you basically pay to play: If you are willing to cough up some cash, you can get a five-minute spot to promote basically anything.

If you don’t believe me, here’s the back end of a segment John Oliver did on “Last Week Tonight,” in which he bought space on sponsored-content programs in three media markets to promote “The Venus Veil.”

(If you want to watch the entire segment, which outlines how this works, why it’s a huge problem and how major media lines are being blurred, you can click the link below. That said, I have to warn you that there’s a great amount of F-bombs, a weird George Clooney segment and allegations of a man engaging in sexual relations with a ham.

To be fair, he’s always been weird, but the pandemic was going on when Oliver filmed this and that really pushed ALL of us into the exponentially weirdness zone…

Watch it if you want, but I warned you.)

The station manager at WTMJ tried to explain away the controversy of honoring people by asking them to pay to be honored with the same level of specificity and success as my kid does in explaining why her room is always a disaster zone:

TMJ4’s station manager, Gregg Schraufnagel, told the Journal Sentinel that “The Morning Blend” is a lifestyle program, not part of the news division, and that it is common for content to be sponsored on the program. “That’s always been the format of the show,” he said.

“The Morning Blend” has been on the air for 18 years.

Schraufnagel declined to get into the specific details of show’s makeup, how many of its segments are sponsored, its typical practices for reaching out to possible guests, or whether the program has charged for Black History Month segments in the past. “Things are evolving all the time,” he said.

DOCTOR OF PAPER HOT TAKE: This entire situation has the comic-tragic vibe of a 1980s sit-com, in that so many things went wrong to make this as terrible as it is.

Start with sponsored content. It’s ubiquitous in the field and has been around for decades, if not longer, if you want to count things like advertorials and infomercials. Even the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel’s own website features it. In this case, right next to the story about WTMJ’s sponsored content:

As John Oliver notes, the lines here get really blurry, particularly when it feels like news and this stuff is all of equal value. The traditional commercial breaks in news or the display advertising in newspapers and websites were much more obviously promotional when compared to this stuff. As consumers tuned out these forms of advertising, marketers looked for ways to play a game of “here comes the airplane” with consumers. The pay-to-play world of ads has essentially borrowed other storytelling formats to make this happen.

That said, to average consumers, this can feel a bit like finding out that Santa is just a guy from your dad’s work who can really rock a white beard. You get used to these trusted local figures who tell you that something is good or something is fun and you believe it. To find that the whole program would sell you a fake Nazi-era sex blanket for the right price can really shatter your world view.

The second key problem here is everything about this pitch.

  • It starts off with a weirdly stylized Black History Month logo, that I can’t find anywhere else but here. It applies the colors of the month as well, although I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that nobody who built that logo could explain what those colors actually mean.
  • I get that they’re the hosts, but the photo of Molly Fay and Tiffany Ogle just does not work with this pitch. These folks in those poses seems to say, “Check out what confident white people can do for you!”
  • The pitch for Black History Month says how important it is for Morning Blend to feature black businesses as the show wants to “promote diversity” and “foster inclusivity,” a sentiment only slightly undercut by the “but only if you have $1,000 to spare” closing paragraph.
  • The second half of the pitch is essentially the same thing they’d send to ANYBODY at ANY POINT in the year, as this is the entire proposition of sponsored content: Come here, pay us money, we’ll have a positive chat and you’ll get air time plus a video clip to promote the hell out of yourself. This isn’t tied to Black History Month alone, nor is there some sort of “Black History Month Discount” for Black-owned businesses. These businesses could do the same thing around Juneteenth Day celebrations, MLK Day or Kwanzaa if they wanted. Hell, they could do it on St. Patrick’s Day or Casimir Pulaski’s birthday if they wanted.
  • When approaching certain topics, it always pays to be much more self-aware than this. I don’t know what it’s like to be anything but me, so I have limited knowledge of how best approach topics related to race, gender and ethnicity. That’s why I usually a) reach out to people I know who have insights before I do something like this, b) try to be more specific than general when I approach topics outside my area of expertise and c) know that I have a far greater chance of failing than succeeding in a truly massive way, so I need to be really, really careful. I don’t see that here at all. In fact, I’d bet that this thing gets a one-paragraph swap out at the bottom of the first column for every target audience the marketing department pitches.

EXERCISE TIME: Find a sponsored content segment and analyze it for its approach to the topic. Look for ways in which you would approach it differently if you were a reporter and trying to present this for a true news feature story.

UW La Crosse Chancellor Joe Gow fired after appearing in porn with his wife, which raises First Amendment concerns

Sometimes, a headline just says it all…

ED NOTE: I apologize in advance for any double entendres. It is almost impossible to write this without hearing a 12-year-old boy in my head laughing, despite my best efforts to avoid such concerns.

THE LEAD: Less than a year after being lauded as a heck of a great chancellor for his stewardship of UW La Crosse, Joe Gow was fired from his leadership role after the UW Board of Regents found out he’d been doing porn on the side:

“In recent days, we learned of specific conduct by Dr. Gow that has subjected the university to significant reputational harm,” UW System President Jay Rothman said. “His actions were abhorrent.”

Board President Karen Walsh said Gow showed “a reckless disregard” for his role as a UW-La Crosse leader.

“We are alarmed, and disgusted, by his actions, which were wholly and undeniably inconsistent with his role as chancellor,” she said.

The 63-year-old tenured communications professor had planned to transition back to a faculty role after completing this final year of his chancellorship. That is currently under review, after Rothman asked the UWL interim chancellor to review his status in that role as well.

Gow said in a Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel interview that he was stunned by the firing, especially since it happened without him present, and noted he felt the First Amendment protected such activities:

Gow said he didn’t know how UW System became aware of the videos, which were all posted within the past two months. No one at UW System or on the UW Board of Regents had asked about his hobby, he said.

“I would say that anything that I do or my my wife and I do, we do as citizens in the United States, who have the freedom of First Amendment to the Constitution, to create and publish books and videos that explore consensual adult sexuality,” he said.

FIRST AMENDMENT CONCERNS: Gow discussed the issue of the First Amendment and his view of how it protected his actions in these films. The First Amendment does cover sexually explicit material, as we’ve noted here before.

It also covers not just speech everyone likes, but speech that people DON’T like. It’s easy to get behind a student newspaper that wants to report that the lunch server was fired for giving poor students extra food. It’s a little more difficult to support speech that leads to a question like, “Hey, wanna watch my chancellor do his wife?”

I reached out to one of my “legal eagle” friends for a general sense of how much ground Gow had to stand on in this case.

He noted that Gow is likely in a “doctrine vs. practical reality” kind of situation. From a pure First Amendment standpoint, he noted, he couldn’t imagine this not being constitutionally protected, so long as Gow wasn’t using UWL time and resources. (In his interviews to this point, Gow noted that he did this on his own time, never once mentioned UWL and basically remained unnamed in his video stuff.)

That said, he also noted that in a more practical fashion, the system would likely make the case that Gow’s video activities made it impossible for him to do his day job as chancellor (and maybe professor) effectively.

The legal eagle referenced the Pickering v. Board of Education (1968) case in which a school teacher had been fired for complaining about the board of education in a letter to the editor of the local newspaper. The Supreme Court reversed the lower court’s ruling, saying that off-duty speech of public employees is protected up to the point where it interferes with the functionality of the employees’ organization.

DOCTOR OF PAPER HOT TAKE: Dear Lord… where to start…

First and foremost, I’m a huge fan of the First Amendment. The ability to say and do things that make other people uncomfortable is woven into the very fabric of our establishment as a country and a society. I don’t like the idea of people of any kind saying that something that is legal should lead to punitive consequences for an individual based on other people feeling “icky” about it.

I also don’t like the lack of due process afforded to Gow in this case. Like most things institutions do quickly behind closed doors in our society, Gow’s firing appears to be a railroading of a man who did his job but now makes us uncomfortable.

Second, this isn’t the first time that an institution has punished an employee for naked stuff. Brianna Copperage, a high school teacher in Missouri, was fired after word of her OnlyFans account got around to the school district. She was doing sexually explicit content on the site to augment her meager teacher pay and noted that nothing in the school’s charter prohibited her from doing so. (It also says something that she made more in a month from OnlyFans than she made the entire year teaching.)

A Colorado law enforcement officer was essentially canned after she was outed as a content provider on OnlyFans. Melissa Williams said she was forced to resign once her superiors found out about her sexually explicit content. A similar thing happened to Detroit police officer Janelle Zielinski and others I’m sure.

Look, I totally get the regents’ reaction to all of this, in that it probably freaked them out to find out one of the chancellors was online doing porn. And yes, he was DOING PORN.

(As much as I really, really, REALLY didn’t want to, the reporter in me forced myself to look at the one free, publicly available site noted in the news articles. I needed to see if a) the stuff was there, b) Gow was actually involved and c) was this actually porn or just some general weird “let’s talk about sex” stuff.

The answers are a) yes, b) yes and c) full-on, hard-core, oh-my-GOD-this-is-happening porn. There are days I really hate myself…)

That said, there’s nothing requiring anyone else to go looking for this guy’s “greatest hits” album out there. If seeing this guy and his wife doing the nasty bothers you, don’t go and watch it. This is the same reason I’ve never been to a strip club. Aside from my awkwardness around people in general and the complete discomfort I imagine that kind of a place would give me, my greatest fear would be finding out that one of my students worked there. I imagine my reaction would be something like this:

The point is , the courts have drawn lines already that limit what the First Amendment does and doesn’t cover. If this guy were doing something illegal, if he were employed by a private company or if he were bogarting state funds to do this, we’d be in a different situation. However, it looks like the regents just tried to kill a fly with a sledgehammer and I’m going to be interested to see what the repercussions are for their actions.

 

 

Gone Fishin’: “So That Happened…” Edition

If you want a 30-second synopsis of how the semester went, this is pretty much it…

We started the year with an $18 million budget hole, filled it with the career corpses of about one of every six employees here, had our raises held up by a petty tyrant who somehow got away with it and then saw the Board of Regents get strong armed into changing its mind with a tactic that seems to have come straight from an old Mafia movie to accept a terrible deal.

I also had a weird year in that more students than usual seemed to think class was an optional element of their education and now are flabbergasted that they will likely have to retake a course. (At least two people came within a hair of not graduating, thanks to this philosophy.)

On the plus side, I got to have a hell of a lot of fun visiting with more than a dozen schools on the “Filak Furlough Tour,” which led to great posts, a tour T-shirt and a post about the tour T-shirt… I also didn’t have to teach law this year, which we all should consider a blessing.

Grades are due Friday, which means its time to hunker down and pass a few people who don’t deserve it, based solely on my desire to never see them in a classroom again. (I’m clearly kidding here, although don’t think that thought doesn’t cross EVERY educator’s mind at least 824 times per semester…)

After that, it’s going to be a little time off before I have to figure out how to teach Intro to Advertising.

We’ll be back in Late January with the regular schedule and, as always, if something pops up before then, we’ll cover it here. Also, if you have any requests, feel free to shoot them my way.

Have a great holiday season.

 

Vince (a.k.a. The Doctor of Paper)

CustomInk-Credible: A textbook way of dealing with a screw-up

Those of you who ordered a “Filak Furlough” T-shirt should be getting a surprise in the mail just before Christmas:

Another T-shirt.

Here’s a look at the back of the one you have, so let’s see if you can figure out why this is happening:

In case you missed it, as I did the first time, I’m not on a “Furlongh.” Here’s the back story on how this happened and a perfect example of how a company, PR organization or news outlet can gain a lot of credibility in the eyes of the public.

As we discussed in an earlier post, CustomInk reached out just before production to tell me I couldn’t include the names of the schools on the shirt without permission. (I’ve since heard from at least two legal experts who remain befuddled by this, but that’s for a different post…)

To make sure that these things got done before I headed out for a conference where several people were expecting them, I had to do a quick fix and get a new version sent back to them that day. I cut the school names, went with the cities, gave everything a once-over and sent it along.

A rep from CustomInk hit me back with a link to the proof, which I scoured for any hint of school stuff I missed and to make sure I didn’t misspell a city or place it in the wrong state. Everything I touched was good, so I green-lit the shirt.

Fast-forward to the day before I’m heading out for this trip and I’m ironing one of the tour shirts when I notice the error. (Yes, I iron my T-shirts. I’m socially inept and fashionologically stunted, but I will not be rumpled.) Immediately, I figure it’s all my fault, so I go back to the proof I sent, wondering how the hell this happened.

It turned out, what I sent was right.

I then looked at the proof and found that was where the error came into play, as the folks at CustomInk infused the misspelling into the mix. I sent an email to them, explaining that this was a mistake that I didn’t create, that somehow got through and it looked doubly stupid because it was a shirt from a journalist. I asked what they’d do to fix it.

My expectations ranged from bad to passable:

BAD: They would come back with something like, “Look, this is why we have you proof the thing before we put it on the shirt. It was there on the proof and you missed it, so c’est la vie. If you want a reprint, you’ll pay for the whole thing.”

COULD BE WORSE: They would come back with something like, “Yeah, it’s kind of our fault but kind of yours as well. We’re willing to do the shirts at a discounted price and you pay for shipping.”

PASSABLE: They would come back with something like, “We’re sorry this happened and we’ll redo the shirts for free, but you’ll need to cover shipping. Next time, though, we have to hold you to what you approved with the proof.”

Never in my wildest dreams did I expect this:

In short, it’s on us.

I agreed and they redid the proof, sending it to me for a review. (And you damned well better believe I studied that thing like it was the Zapruder Film before I hit “send.”)

They then promised to make sure everyone had them before Christmas (as I’m sure many of you were planning to make it a Festive Filak Furlough Holiday Season…).

Aside from essentially guaranteeing my business for every other shirt I’ll ever do, the folks at CustomInk gave us a textbook example of how to deal with a foul-up in any field, regardless of if it’s a newspaper correction or a marketing mistake:

ACKNOWLEDGE IT: The people at CustomInk got back to me right away and said, “We see the issue here.” In doing so, it sets the stage for the rest of the process. If they’re like, “What’s the big deal?” or “Don’t be so petty,” we’re off to a bad start.

Admitting that a mistake happened is really tough in our field, particularly when we pride ourselves on always being accurate and helpful. I know a lot of newspaper folks used to fight tooth and nail to bend reality in a way that made potential errors not worthy of corrections. The idea there was that by fessing up, we somehow undercut our credibility with the readers. In reality, the opposite was true.

EXPLAIN IT: One of the questions I had was how the mistake happened, as I was initially sure it was my fault. Then, when it wasn’t, I had a hard time figuring out how a PDF got screwed up, as that’s not supposed to happen. In this email, CustomInk gave me the basic explanation of what it does and how the error occurred.

In some cases, the errors are your fault and explaining how you screwed that up can be helpful. An amazing reporter I worked with back at the State Journal once covered a bank robbery that a regular citizen foiled by tackling the robber outside the bank. However, she managed to invert the names, thus calling the hero by the name of the robber and the robber by the name of the hero. Clearly, that caused some problems.

Another case we discussed on the blog earlier explained how an award-winning sports journalist accidentally put a former Beatles drummer on the Green Bay Packers of the 1960s.

In both cases, the reporter explained how those mistakes had occurred, with the idea that in figuring this out and talking about it, the reporter would be less likely to have the same thing happen again.

Also, in some cases, it ISN’T your fault: A press release has the wrong information, a source misspoke or one of a dozen other things happened. In explaining those issues, you can also save face in the eyes of your audience.

FIX IT: Not every mistake can be undone, as was the case with our look at the “filthiest” paragraph error. The paper there ran a correction, an apology, a letter from the writer and more, but it still wasn’t enough to make things better for Bubba Dixon.

However, whenever a mistake can be fixed, do so to the best of your ability. It might not be fun and it might not be easy, but do everything you can to restore faith in you and your organization.

Sure, CustomInk could have told me to go pound sand, and from a legal standpoint, I’m sure that would have been OK. However, the folks there realized that a ticked-off customer is not something they want roaming the internet. Even more, I’d had so many good experiences with them, I’m sure they didn’t want the last one to be terrible.

Therefore, they realized the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze here and they decided to fix it in the best way possible, knowing they probably lost some money on the deal, but also knowing that they kept a customer happy.