Strictly as a joke, I recently wrote to some Facebook friends that I was considering returning to full-time teaching. Why? To save time, which I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll explain in a few graphs below.<\/p>\n
The career move would be iffy \u00e2\u20ac\u201d especially for one who gave up the tweed jacket with leather elbow patches about 16 years ago. Would I even stand a chance, given that Latino professors with doctoral degrees have become more plentiful lately.<\/p>\n
Today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s stable of professors probably grew up in the iPhone era and wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t recognize a pencil and a reporter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s notebook.<\/p>\n
But to get to the point, I joked to friends on my Facebook page that even a 24-hour-a-week job at the Optic can be daunting. I added that seeking full-time teaching work, at Highlands, Luna Community College or even the United World College, would give me the time I need for things I enjoy, like traveling across the Atlantic and this year \u00e2\u20ac\u201d (we already have the tickets) \u00e2\u20ac\u201d flying to Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n
My returning-to-work reference apparently drew the attention of a number of people. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What do you plan to teach?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Will you try to get your old job back?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
My old job was teaching journalism and speech at Highlands. It lasted 28 years. The administration at the time must have figured Highlands could save big bucks by simply killing the journalism program when I retired. Yes, there have been a few attempts to resurrect the campus Newspaper, La Mecha, but they were short-lived.<\/p>\n
As an outsider looking in, in the sense of a former campus newspaper adviser, I regretted seeing empty newspaper racks around campus. A few attempts to pump news into the weekly became instead long essays, written in dorm rooms, without the writers even attempting to do a bit of face-to-face research.<\/p>\n
Eventually, I got over my hope that Highlands would hire a trained journalist \u00e2\u20ac\u201d not necessarily me \u00e2\u20ac\u201d to restore a program that had a long history. The name Harry Lancaster comes to mind, as do those of Eddie Groth and Ray Newton, advisers of yesteryear.<\/p>\n
Part of me also wonders whether a real weekly campus newspaper would suffice. After all, we can get our fill of the news by going online. Many major newspapers have online access to their news, features, photos and editorials, but there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s often a catch: a paid subscription.<\/p>\n
Because I vowed that this Democrat would try to gain at least a modicum of information regarding the current Republican convention, I assigned myself several hours of watching what the GOPers are up to, as I will when the Democrats hold their convention. Irrespective of my good intentions, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve found it exceedingly difficult to discern much objectivity.<\/p>\n
Fox News, for example, makes it no secret that even though that cable network won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t give The Donald a full frontal hug as an endorsement, the reporting bias will favor the Republicans. Of course, voters on the other side will make the same accusations about how certain networks give more favorable coverage to the Democrats. Feeling the palpable manipulation of news, I wonder whether the possible resurrection of Highlands\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 La Mecha would also become a forum for some to tout their pet causes. It annoys me when it becomes patent that alleged news organizations build in bias, going so far as to try to get readers-listeners to digest what the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153news\u00e2\u20ac\u009d organizations feed them.<\/p>\n
The editorial section of newspaper, including that of the Optic, makes it clear that the page welcomes opinion. That opinion doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t necessarily have to be our opinion as well. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a fair use of the opinion section.<\/p>\n
What rankles, however, is the notion that readers and televiewers are too stupid to form their own opinions and thus, the writers and producers need to package the material in such a way that tells them what to think.<\/p>\n
A few years ago, my wife and grand kids and I visited Missouri and spent an afternoon touring the campus of the University of Missouri, home of the prestigious journalism school, the oldest in the nation. I received a master\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s degree from there in 1979.<\/p>\n
Touring the offices of the campus daily paper, The Columbia Missourian, I thought, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What if? What if I were to take on a summer course or two to brush up on J-school techniques?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I realized my training in the writing craft goes back almost two decades. A glance at the journalism course schedule there, which took as much space as the entire Highlands course offerings, convinced me I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have been a lonely student if taking only courses I felt comfortable with.<\/p>\n
Clear prose is good, but the offerings were anemic. What has replaced much straight news reporting? The catalog listed numerous courses on the mechanics of preparing newspapers. There were units on how to edit photos, how to get more productivity out of a Macintosh, and hints on making the front page more attractive.<\/p>\n
Included were several classes on radio and TV broadcasting.<\/p>\n
With no false modesty, I declare next to no interest in those kinds of offerings. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m barely above the rank of Neanderthal when it comes to simple typing (like this), and my interest still is clear writing.<\/p>\n
You know that pipe dream I wrote about, in which I thought of returning to my old job?<\/p>\n
Well, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not going to happen. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m content simply churning out a weekly column. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to stick around until I reach my one-thousandth column. There are about 220 to go, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never missed a week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Strictly as a joke, I recently wrote to some Facebook friends that I was considering returning to full-time teaching. Why? To save time, which I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll explain in a few graphs below. The career move would be iffy \u00e2\u20ac\u201d especially for one who gave up the tweed jacket with leather elbow patches about 16 years ago. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1526"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1526"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1527,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1526\/revisions\/1527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}