Our
Spring 2003 newsletter inlcuded interviews with
the editors of two new student papers at UCI.
Due to the limitations of print media, we were
unable to include the complete interviews in the
newsletter. We have included here in digital form
the full interviews with Nathan C. Masters of
the Irvine Review and Alexander Phillips
of the Irvine Progressive.
A
Culture of Publication
Two new independent papers offer alternative
perspectives to the UCI student community
by John Barton and Sean Hill
For over 35 years the New University has
been the “official” newspaper of UCI students.
In recent years, however, a variety of alternative
student papers has covered campus news from diverse
perspectives. Past and present student publications
include Alkalima, the Muslim paper; Womyn’s
Quarterly; Inqueery, the Gay, Lesbian,
Bisexual paper; La Voz Mestiza, the Chicano/Latino
paper; Umoja, the African American paper;
Definition, an Asian and Pacific Islander
paper; and, most recently “F,”
a paper providing a campus forum for radical free
speech. Given this recent surge of student newspapers,
one might think of the culture of writing at UCI
as a culture of publication.
Two new papers, the Irvine Review (IR)
and the Irvine Progressive (IP), have
recently entered into this student publishing culture.
But unlike the other alternative presses, which
target specific groups, IR and IP
are challenging the New University (NU)
for a broader student readership.
The office of the Campus Writing Coordinator conducted
separate interviews with Nathan C. Masters, editor
of IR and a third-year political science
student, and Alexander Phillips, editor of IP
and a first-year drama student. In what follows,
we have juxtaposed each editor’s responses
to common questions. [Note: Differences in style
arise from the fact that Masters responded to questions
electronically, while Phillips met with us for an
oral interview.]
* * *
Describe the purpose of your paper.
IR: I started IR to introduce conservative
ideas to a student body that, in my view, was
being fed only one point of view. I know that
IR has succeeded in that primary goal;
thousands of students have read our newspaper.
Some have liked what they’ve read and actually
joined our staff. Others have reacted negatively.
But at the very least, I know that IR has
forced students to re-examine their beliefs. On
another level, I wanted to help create a truly
free marketplace of ideas on the UC Irvine campus.
True, there were never any negative restrictions
on speech, but there weren’t necessarily
any positive attempts to facilitate fruitful discourse.
The right to free speech has little meaning unless
it can be exercised effectively. I like to think
that we’ve helped in that regard. Before
IR, a conservative student could have stood
up on a soapbox to express his ideas, but he wouldn’t
have been very effective at reaching his audience
(fellow students). Now, though, that student would
find in IR an effective means to express his ideas.
I think the entire campus is better for that,
because as I mentioned earlier, the presence of
another point-of-view will force people to reconsider
and thus better understand their ideas.
IP: The [IP] is the brainchild of
the Young Democrats (YDs) of UCI, although it
is technically a nonpartisan paper. So, that means
that yes, it’s liberal, but liberalism right
now is so diverse, and liberalism isn’t just
democrats, but it’s Greens—I happen
to be a Green myself—and other parties. The
idea was that we could represent the whole spectrum
of liberalism. Basically, [the IP] is just
a means for us to get our liberal issues out there
and to counter the IR and the NU,
which are both, you know, the NU is conservative
and IR is ridiculously conservative. [IP
expresses the perspective of] the liberals on
campus: the YDs who are mostly pretty moderate,
although I am one of their further left members
when you talk about the liberal spectrum; the
students who have been involved in the antiwar
activities; groups like CalPirg, which are technically
nonpartisan but tend to cover liberal issues;
and various ethnic groups we are hoping to work
with in the future.
Is your newspaper modeled after any other papers?
If so, which one(s) and why? If not, what national
or local publications would you consider the “company”
of your paper?
IR: We have looked to conservative student
publications at other campuses for guidance and
inspiration, but we have tried to develop our
own style. As far as national publications are
concerned, our favorite magazines or newspapers
will of course influence us. Many staff members
read National Review and the editorial
pages of the Wall Street Journal and Orange
County Register. Personally, I’ve been
looking to the National Review of the 1950s
and 60s (under William F. Buckley, Jr.) for inspiration
recently. Our news section, which covers stories
objectively (on the face) but with a distinctly
conservative angle, may also be influenced by
conservative newspapers like Human Events
and the Washington Times.
IP: Yes, we looked very heavily at the
IR because, although we don’t care
for their views obviously, they are a very successful
alternative publication on campus, and so we’d
like to model ourselves after them and hopefully
emulate their success. [We are also interested
in] how The Nation does things. We are
hoping to emulate their respectability and their
journalistic integrity and we are looking at how
they do things.
Is your paper affiliated with any campus groups
or organizations? Does the paper primarily cover
stories related to UCI? Is its audience primarily
UCI students? How, if at all, does your newspaper
participate in the “culture of writing”
at UCI?
IR: Our primary audience is UCI students,
although we do have many subscribers who read
our publication but aren’t connected to UCI.
Because we are a campus publication, we try to
cover as many UCI-related stories as possible.
Of course, it’s difficult to fill twenty
pages by exclusively covering campus issues, so
we also write on issues not directly related to
UCI. The IR Foundation, which we set up
to serve as IR’s parent organization,
funds and sponsors the Freeman Society, an intellectual
conservative reading and discussion group. With
that notable exception, we are not affiliated
with any campus organizations. IR does
participate in the “culture of writing”
at UCI. I know that a lot our writers like to
write, but usually won’t unless they know
that they’ll get published. In that sense,
the presence of IR as a publishing medium
has encouraged many students to write. I think
we’ve also contributed to that culture by
spurring those with a different viewpoint to start
their own publications, like the IP. The
emergence of this new alternative publication
is a veritably good thing for UCI, and I believe
that its continued presence will bring about the
same benefits that I’ve outlined above (enriching
free speech and forcing students to understand
their own beliefs better).
IP: We are just getting started. Like I
said, this is something we talked about with the
YDs, and most of the members involved in this
project are also affiliated with the YDs. Something
that we had to establish also is the paper’s
relationship with the YDs, because we don’t
want it to be a YD thing, although members of
the YDs did kind of pilot it. Something that we’ve
really been working on since we finally got our
first issue out is the relationship between the
paper and the YDs.
We try to cover a broad range of issues. We cover
issues around UCI, like in our first issue we
had the Horowitz article and we also had an article
on chalking, which has been an issue around campus.
But we do also talk about broader issues with
the state and the City of Irvine, and of course
the nation and the world. But since this is still
a brand new thing we are still figuring ourselves
out. It remains to be seen [how the IP
will fit into a “culture of writing”
at UCI].
How large is your circulation? How many papers
do you produce per issue? Is UCI your primary
site of distribution?
IR: We printed 3500 copies of the May issue.
Out of those 3500, we mail about 200 copies to
our subscribers and distribute the rest to the
wooden student media bins around campus. According
to our publisher, who keeps very detailed records
of these things, almost all of our copies are
taken within two weeks.
IP: For our first issue we printed up 3000
copies and distributed them around campus. But
for our next issue we are going to do fewer copies,
1500, and do eight pages, so that way we can have
even more content. Because we receive funding
from the Student Media Board, there is a rule
that in order to qualify for that funding it has
to be a UCI distributed paper. I think the rule
is that 2/3 of our copies have to be distributed
on campus. So far all of the off campus distribution
we’ve done is to families and friends. And,
of course, our website is available to anybody
on the planet.
What criteria do you use in selecting stories
to be covered?
IR: In our opinion section, we try to select
stories that introduce conservative ideas to the
reader while commenting on campus issues. In our
news section, which was a bit neglected in this
issue, we select stories that we feel are ignored
by the NU or that we can cover from a different
angle.
IP: Because student media is all about
freedom of speech, the criteria is what will fit
in the space that we have. We do, however, want
to make sure that we are very professional about
that. And that’s something that I have been
very careful of, especially with such a strong
conservative paper on campus, we don’t want
it to just be mudslinging. We want to maintain
a very professional relationship with the IR.
And so far, for the most part, the IR has
been very gracious to us as we’ve started
up. So, on our cover we printed an article on
a college Republican event with David Horowitz.
When I received that article from the author,
I didn’t want to run it as news, as it editorializes
so much, and also we don’t want to give too
much attention to what the conservatives are doing
and just be a reactionary force to them. So we
called it a “news commentary” as a bit
of a compromise.
Who are the writers of your paper: students,
prospective journalists, nonstudents or professional
writers, etc.?
IR: Out of a staff of about 25, all but
one of our writers are UCI students. The exception,
Jorge Pena, graduated from UCI last year. None
of us is a professional writer, and the only prospective
journalist (to my knowledge) is myself; I am going
to intern as a reporter for an online news wire
agency (Cybercast News—CNSNews.com) this
summer. Regarding our writers’ fields of
study, I don’t have a detailed list to give
you, but I know that they represent a variety
of majors: political science, ICS, classics, mathematics,
mechanical engineering, economics, etc. For those
who care about such things, I might add that our
staff is also diverse in its ethnic and religious
composition.
IP: Well, there’s myself obviously.
I am a Green. Of course with the war in Iraq I’m
paying a lot of attention to international affairs.
I’m actually a drama major, and beyond political
writing, I am also interested in playwriting.
Most of our staff are history and political science
majors. I would say, most of the editors are a
little more moderate; they’re all democrats,
I believe. Some of our writers we actually attracted
from the NU because they were really disgruntled
by the conservatism. One of our editors writes
for the NU and so do the two writers we have for
our first issue. We are all students. But because
some people will be graduating, they may stay
on with the staff as columnists. Most of the staff
has to be somehow UCI affiliated.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
IP: The upcoming issue is going to be eight
pages. We are starting to reach out to more readers
because we have more space. I am hoping that we
can bring on a couple new writers. I am hoping
that we can get someone from CalPirg to contribute.
We have gotten the attention of other groups on
campus. We are staring to get a lot of feedback.
We just got a letter to the editor from someone
who writes for the IR. It was rather nasty,
but at least he took the time to write to us.
And we will see where we grow from here.
* * *
To
find out more about UCI student publications,
cleck here
for a brief list of links to some online versions
of UCI student papers.
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Last
update:
10/30/07
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