Report of the Ad Hoc Committee for Academic Planning: College of Arts and Sciences

Draft Report From Ad Hoc Committee for Academic Planning

Sunny Nights

Welcome to the jungle. It’s the first night of compet down here at The Sun and things are heating up. The beer bottles from last semester’s end of publication party have been replaced with caffeinated beverages, and us editors are bracing ourselves for the daily grind that is life at the nation’s oldest continuously independent college daily.

Last night marked the beginning of The Sun’s annual editor compet, a transitional period training those vying for coveted spots on the 127th editorial board. Some may say the process resembles hazing, as editors in training fill the shoes of their predecessors for six weeks of head-to-head competition. But from an editor’s standpoint, there is no better way to prepare editorial candidates for the trials and tribulations that lie ahead.

Stormy Waters: Charting The Sun’s Place in the Journalism Industry

Anyone who’s followed the media industry in the slightest knows that print journalism isn’t what it once was. With the internet making news so much easier to obtain, print editions are getting slimmed down, reporters are getting laid off and editors are quitting. Plus, the advent of blogging — which some consider grass-roots journalism while others call it the downfall of legitimate news — means that regular people are breaking news as opposed to institutionalized media outlets. Lastly, print advertising is down because websites like Craigslist cut down on the need to post ads in a newspaper. So, the world is scrambling to find the next big thing that will save the newspaper business, but no one really knows what it is yet. That’s my take anyway.

The Sun Also Rises…at The Times?

Amidst the hustle and bustle of New York City’s Times Square stands a 52-story building that houses what many would consider to be the nation’s bastion of journalistic excellence: The New York Times. Though the new home to The New York Times has since made headlines for its Modernist structure that beckoned a few dare devils to scale its façade of ceramic rods, the building’s architecture pales in comparison to what brews inside its glass walls.

Wrapping It Up

Classes are over, Slope Day was sloppy and publication may be on leave for the next three months, but those of us here at The Sun (side note: not the actual Sun office but “here” in mind nonetheless as we too attempt to study in one of the various libraries on campus) are still working hard to get keep our website updated and our readers aware of what is going on at C.U.

From Us to You

Just look in the upper-left corner of The New York Times to find one of the most hackneyed expressions of journalism: “All The News That’s Fit to Print.”

This new addition to The Sun’s online-only content, however, hopes to solve the ever-present dilemma of print journalism: that all news is not fit to print. Our print edition — full of articles, columns, photographs, graphics and reviews — tells only part of each story. It offers the end product of researching, interviewing, writing and all-around intrepid reporting that our reporters complete on a day-to-day basis. The Sun staff, which includes a whopping 200 dedicated (semi-insane) members of the Cornell community, is an inspired lot whose work cannot be conveyed in its entirety in 20, to 24, to 28 to even 32 pages.