failing editors?

March 13, 2007 7:16 AM

Failing college editors? Where did I read this article?

I read this article on a blog a few months ago, and I can't find it now. It was about the editors at two ivy league schools (harvard yale columbia or princeton) that were put on academic probation or expelled because they were over-worked on the student papers there. I think I may have found it on Digg. But I went back to find it the next day and couldn't find it. Help? P.S. this is somewhat current news. Not editors from the 30s or something. Editors from just a minute ago.

posted by bash to media & arts (10 comments total)

anecdotally, this happened to a series of friends of mine at our (unnamed ivy-league) school, but they sure did a nice job on the paper.
posted by zachxman at 7:30 AM on March 13, 2007

Isn't this normal? It sure was for me 7 years ago...
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 8:02 AM on March 13, 2007

As a current (non-ivy) newspaper editor, this doesn't shock me at all.
posted by youcancallmeal at 8:15 AM on March 13, 2007

Yeah, I'm an editor too, so that's why I want to find this article. So I can email it to my overbearing, inconsiderate advisor.
posted by bash at 8:21 AM on March 13, 2007

Sounds familiar to me, too. I searched Romenesko (which is where I probably would have read about something like that) but came up blank.

I did find a February 2006 article at the Harvard Independent about the editor of the Harvard Crimson resigning because of grades. If that's part of the case you and I are thinking of, he's probably the first of the two editors to resign. The Independent's search function seems to be on the blink, though, so I can't search to see if there's a more recent resignation.
posted by faster than a speeding bulette at 8:32 AM on March 13, 2007

I'm pretty sure I saw this article, too. I think it was referenced on IvyGate or Gawker.
posted by pfafflin at 9:10 AM on March 13, 2007

Thanks! I found it! It was on gawker:

For everyone else:
http://gawker.com/news/harvard/newspapers-destroy-young-lives-at-harvard-234899.php
posted by bash at 9:16 AM on March 13, 2007

Wow. I actually feel better about the fact that I graduated, despite my crappy GPA, after that.
posted by croutonsupafreak at 12:59 PM on March 13, 2007

[[chuckles]] This discussion is cathartic for me.

Doing extra semesters or taking summer courses to stay on track for graduation while working at the paper was once an honored tradition for senior editors at my [wannabe-ivy] college newspaper—a tradition I totally revived.

(I took 10-12 hours worth of courses every summer so I could take 10-12 hours a semester during the year, and thus spend all my time at the newspaper and still complete my single major and double minor, sans honors thesis or anything of the sort.

I can't tell you how much I resented being compared to my three ridiculously overachieving predecessors as editor, all three of whom [I believe] pulled off honors theses, double majors and election to Phi Beta Kappa, in addition to surviving senior year as EIC.

No, I'm not still smarting from that a year later. No, not me.)
posted by limeonaire at 2:36 PM on March 13, 2007

I lived with the EIC of our University newspaper. I always wondered how he could be so on top of his work at the paper and so not in terms of his schoolwork. It makes more sense now.
posted by mai at 5:16 PM on March 13, 2007