FAMU's newspaper staff, students who became an integral part of the story when they went on strike as the school's financial crisis left hundreds of employees without paychecks and drew the attention of state lawmakers.The most poignant story came from the heart of The Famuan newsroom: The news editor, an outspoken 19-year-old named Nefertiti Williams, was killed over Thanksgiving in a murder-suicide that devastated the staff.
Continue reading: Student newspaper covered a series of extraordinary and tragic events
To be honest the FAMUAN SUCKED!!! It should have been an advocate for the University! It should have defended the University against the assault from the Tallahassee Dixie rat and the St. Petersburg Lies and the Orlando Spies...No this is not what happened this paper allowed the school to be destroyed in ink when it had ink of its on! When it should have been speaking out against the past six years of EVIL HORRIBLE non-leadership from the president, interim president, BOT and former Gov.!!! There should have been a headline calling for the ouster of CASTELL and her inept leadership team. Yet, I must say I didn't know that the FAMUAN was so bad when times were good because they did not have to stand for anything, but when times were bad instead of standing for FAMU the FAMUAN failed...articles saying that it was ok for FSU to take over the COE??? Who wrote that a FAMU student, the shame. Questioning the quality of students? Talking about reducing the size of the University all endorsed by articles in the FAMUAN! The shame. Any well-read idiot would know that the only reason that became a "talking point" is because it would be a back door way into reducing FAMU to a Bachelor Producing ONLY University!
ReplyDeleteMay God help us! We need another school newspaper we are larger enough to have an independent paper on campus as well as the FAMUAN. And lets not talk about 90.5 all the students talk about on there is stupid crap!
I agree. They drop the ball.
ReplyDeleteI understand what it takes to run an operation like the FAMUAN, and I commend the staff and faculty for the awards and accolades hard earned. It seems that recognition is what has been driving the FAMUAN lately. I can understand where that comes from, but there has to be more ownership at every level. The paper did get separated from the student body at some point. The flava station plays a great variety, but the talk shows remind me of a bootleg station back home. I do however, know that there are some progressives on the air though. I am always looking to hear more discussions on critical issues. To both I say GET REAL!
ReplyDeleteInteresting how that article was peppered with incorrect or bad information. Hmm. Who was this written as a favor for?
ReplyDeleteTo anyone that says The Famuan should be a puppet(advocate) for FAMU at all times, you clearly do not understand journalism.The newspaper's job is not to take a stand, but to print news. The PR office(which can barely print a press release) must be what you need to reference. The Famuan's job is to tell FAMU's news,regardless of good or bad.The main ones who complain about the paper are not the ones spending 40-50 hours in the office a week and going to class.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I agree with Ebonie....
ReplyDeleteThe job of a free press is to report the news, factually. Not be a mouthpiece for the University!
What was LaNedra and Pam Bryant and Castell, sitting on their asses doing?
Ok that argument about not being a "mouthpiece" for the university and simply "reporting" the news good, bad and ugly because it is the news is asinine. Fact number one: When we were getting tossed over the goals about the COE it should have been noted that FAMU not FSU initiated the COE to begin with and at that time FSU's administration had no desire for a COE. Fact number two: when we were being taken to task over the quality of our students it should have been noted that FAMU's College of Pharmacy still produces over 20% of America's African American Pharm D's! That is news and that is Journalism! So if you spent 40-50 hours reporting the same negative crap that the Dixie Rat was producing then you were just looking for a job after college. Souls are so cheap now a day! So there is news that is good sound journalism and instead of us as a people simply repeating the same negative news that we see ever day, then we are in trouble.
ReplyDeleteThe revolution will not be televised! Nor printed in the FAMUAN or on 90.5!
Free yourself from mental slavery - Bob Marley
I agree with 2:59-
ReplyDeleteIt's the job of the Student Newspaper to print facts (or NEWS) in a positive light or if need be negative. Take a position of your own and support it with FACTS that surely the "other sides" won't. Be a VOICE, a NEWS worthy VOICE for the students, the university, and the community.
I guarantee you that you won't go work for another NEWS entity and only report the side of the story that has already been printed by someone else. You will provide a different perspective and facts to support it. It's nothing wrong with supporting FAMU and the students - as the FAMUAN you should be the voice of the students
Adjunct professors were the first to draw media attention to missing paychecks (Tallahassee Democrat and WCTV) when they resigned after not being paid, not FAMUAN staff and faculty.
ReplyDeleteA student newspaper is a newspaper, not a voice of the students or the university. It reports. It does not create positive news or put a spin on things.
ReplyDeleteSure, students don't always get everything perfect the first time, and this is a student organization.
But look at the competition and you'll see that the FAMUAN is good. FAMU should be proud to have this outstanding student newspaper.
And FAMU should suck it up and accept that having a quality paper means having someone point out your mistakes.
It's part of being a real university that doesn't have to hide behind news that is slanted to look positive.
While the newspaper is indeed not a public relations vehicle, it should never support a policy or decision that hurts the university.
ReplyDeleteThere was absolutely no excuse for The FAMUan editorial board to support transferring the E-School's financial control to FSU. That was a case-in-point example of poor journalism.
Had FSU succeeded in wresting that financial control from FAMU, our university would have been permanently barred from any meaningful role in the E-School's operation. The FAMUan editorial board lost a tremendous amount of credibility when it came out in favor of that destructive proposal.
While we need to welcome healthy debate in the FAMU community, there is no room for voices that favor rolling back generations of progress at our institution. We cannot let FAMU's enemies succeed in taking over the E-School or making FAMU a bachelor's only college with no graduate/professional programs.
If The FAMUan editorial board is not going to fight the attacks against FAMU's academic growth then the student body must demand changes within the newspaper. People who do not support FAMU having an equal partnership in the E-School or expanded graduate/professional program offerings should not represent FAMU on the student newspaper's staff.
4:52 pm Being a student does not is not a reason for poor quality. Therefore, it is not acceptable as an excuse for one to say, well because it is a student run organization that it can be allowed to be less than. These "students" are supposedly being prepared for jobs after college, i.e. the old SBI student etc...
ReplyDeleteThe FAMUAN did not report, negatively or positively, on 98% of the events posted here on Rattlernation. To credit them for being a reliable source of information is preposterous.
ReplyDeleteWell I hope those of you who are voicing such strong opinions about the FAMUAN are moving into a direction that will best showcase your journalistic skills in an off campus newspaper.
ReplyDeleteBest Wishes
Proud Alumna 2002
YES I AM!
ReplyDeleteThe Hill Force Times
5/03/2007 5:08 PM wrote:
ReplyDelete"While we need to welcome healthy debate in the FAMU community, there is no room for voices that favor rolling back generations of progress at our institution."
Healthy debate means having a place for all views and discussing those views with respect.
Your approach demands that people censor their views if they have thoughts that go against some supposed mainstream opinion of what is good for FAMU.
It is actually possible that FAMU might be better off without the hassle of the engineering school. A subject like that should be discussed openly on this campus and not dismissed as anti-FAMU.
No one person knows enough to decide what is the best for FAMU. That is why we listen to one another.
^^^^^^^^^^^^Wrote
ReplyDelete"It is actually possible that FAMU might be better off without the hassle of the engineering school. A subject like that should be discussed openly on this campus and not dismissed as anti-FAMU."
Please stay of the whiskey Mrs. Caroll!
5/04/2007 2:41 PM, after I wrote "we listen to one another," I'm now having second thoughts about the value of listening to you.
ReplyDeleteTh' name aint Carroll.
It is actually possible that FAMU might be better off without the hassle of the engineering school. A subject like that should be discussed openly on this campus and not dismissed as anti-FAMU.
ReplyDeleteThat’s every bit as absurd as saying that black people would be better off without the hassle of citizenship rights. Your logic is no different from those who claim that blacks would better off as slaves with white people telling them when to work, eat, sleep, and reproduce.
FSU’s attempt to take over the E-School was a direct extension of Jim Crow’s legacy. Jim Crow was a system that gave white people complete control over higher education. FSU’s decision to take FAMU’s law school in the late 1960s was an example of whites exercising the power to do whatever they want to blacks with no consequences or checks-and-balances.
By attempting to muscle FAMU out of the E-School partnership, FSU tried once again to tell the state’s only public HBCU that it should continue to give whites whatever they want whenever they want.
As journalists, The FAMUan editorial board members also should have been able to make the connection between the timing of the attempted E-School takeover and the Pappas Report. The Pappas Report, which FSU vigorously supports, states that FAMU should be stripped of all its graduate and professional programs.
When the state legislature shut down FAMU’s law school, it gave the former FAMU College of Law’s library collection over to FSU’s newly created law school. So what do you think will happen if the Pappas Report is implemented? Keep in mind that FSU has always wanted its own Schools of Pharmacy and Architecture.
Supporting an effort to help FSU at FAMU’s expense is not an example of critical thinking; it is an example of a mis-educated Negro’s thought patterns.
Your approach demands that people censor their views if they have thoughts that go against some supposed mainstream opinion of what is good for FAMU.
No, my approach is to urge the FAMU student body, which pays most of The FAMUan’s budget through its Activity & Fees, to demand a higher quality of journalism from its student newspaper. Under no circumstances should The FAMUan support a policy that undermines FAMU’s continued existence as an autonomous research university with graduate and professional programs. If The FAMUan staffers continue to publish anti-FAMU language and sentiments, then the students have to pull the plug on them like CBS and MSNBC did to Don Imus.
No one person knows enough to decide what is the best for FAMU. That is why we listen to one another.
We know enough about the history of segregation and FSU’s attempts to steal our graduate/professional programs to understand that such activity is detrimental to FAMU’s future. If The FAMUan’s current staff doesn’t understand that, then it needs to be replaced with a new staff that does.
5:01
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely right!!!!
Look at how the Democrat supports FSU, not in what they say, but in what they choose not to say about the school.
Are they so naiive that they believe that papers do not have "slants," and their paper should be slanted toward the people who are giving them the training they need to go out in the real world.
What does their dean have to say about that?
9:56--if you are a "Proud Alumna 2002," you missed a couple of basic writing classes while you were a student:
ReplyDeleteYou should have a comma after "well," and "off campus" should be hyphenated, as in "off-campus."
Don't try and make an excuse about the fact that this is only a blog space, go get that basic writing text.
Irreplaceable
ReplyDeleteDedicated to Castell & Co.
HMMMMM
To the left
To the left
Everything you own in the box to the left
It’s in the audit
That’s our stuff
If FAMU bought it
Please don’t touch
Keep talking that trash that’s fine
But could you board your broom at the same time
And it’s FAM’s name that’s on that Tag
So get to steppin you triflin’ Hag
Standing up in Lee Hall
Tellin us how we just a fool
Talking bout –
we’ll never ever ever find a Prez like you
You got us twisted
You must not know bout FAM
You must not know bout FAM
We can have another Prez in a minute
Matter a fact he’ll be here in minute
Casty
You must not know bout FAM
You must not know bout FAM
We will have another Prez by tomorrow
So don’t you ever for a second get to thinkin
You’re irreplaceable
So go ahead and get gone
Call up Challis and see if she home
Oops I bet you thought that we didn’t know
What you think we are firin’ your ass for
Cause yall was untrue
Lyin and stealin and doin what you want to
So Casty drop off them keys
And hurry up before yo broomstick leave
Standing up in Lee Hall
Tellin us how we just a fool
Talking bout –
We’ll never ever ever find a Prez like you
You got us twisted
You must not know bout FAM
You must not know bout FAM
We can have another Prez in a minute
Matter a fact he’ll be here in minute
Casty
You must not know bout FAM
You must not know bout FAM
We will have another Prez by tomorrow
So don’t you ever for a second get to thinkin
You’re irreplaceable
So you robbed FAMU of everything
But how about she’s still something
Though she’s nothing at all to you
But we won’t shed a tear for you
We won't lose a wink of sleep
Cause the truth of the matter is
Replacin you with James was so easy
HMMMMM
To the left
to the left
To the left
to the left
Maybe you should be looking to the black press anyway!? That way you won't have to equate "the opposing" or "controversial" issues with good sound journalism. They ought to have advisors from the pshychology and history depts. in addition to what is there now. A good journalist knows that intent will bleed through the lines. We don't want to be "satisified" with lies, we want to be INFORMED, as it relates to being a FAMUan in this world today! The papers that the staff is being trained for, are mouthpeices, or voices fro something and someone. If the writer, produces for himself-the distributor is not necessary; neither is a readership.
ReplyDelete