Is disestablishmentarianism dead in college newspapers?
Twenty years ago, I served as editor-in-chief of my college newspaper. My co-editors and I stayed up until six or seven in the morning, five nights a week. We drank stale coffee, smoked cheap cigarettes, and banged away on manual typewriters, trying to affect a grizzled, hard-boiled image. Most of us were privileged kids from the suburbs, not working-class gumshoes. But the tough-guy image we cultivated included a deep skepticism of authority – especially of the authorities who ran our university. So we made it our job to make them miserable. Every day, our newspaper attacked the university. It wasn’t providing enough financial aid; it wasn’t hiring enough minority professors; it wasn’t assisting the nearby community. Whatever the university did or didn’t do, we denounced it. Open up a college paper today, and you’ll find a very different sensibility. Today’s editors embrace the cool vibe of popular culture. Their stories focus less on university politics and more on music, film, fashi
