By MICHAEL TITTINGER is editor of the Santa Monica Daily Press. When he’s not tying one on, he
IF IKEA WERE EVER TO INTRODUCE A new line of editor’s desks — named with a silly arrangement of vowels and hard consonants — they would have to disregard that pesky notion that all furniture be sparse, functional and feng shui friendly. An editor’s desk, of course, needs to come complete with a bottom drawer. That’s where the flask goes.
From Samuel Clemens to Ernie Pyle to J. Jonah Jamison (who probably kept a bottle of his namesake Irish whiskey tucked into his desk to toast ripping Spidey a new one), the not-always-so discreet bottle of alcohol has been part of the newsroom mystique as much as gallows humor, truckers’ English and non sequitur debates touching on everything from Dennis Kucinich’s UFO sightings to Tom Hanks’ turn in “The Burbs” — all behind the scenes, of course.
It’s one of the last American office places where a nip of alcohol now and then, while on the job, can be justified... maybe.
It’s writing for God’s sake. It’s Hemingway in Paris and J.R.R. Tolkien at the Rabbit Room in London; it’s Norman Mailer on a stool at New York’s White Horse Inn and Samuel Beckett at the Temple Bar — the one in Dublin.
Drinking has been a part of the newspaper business for as long as there’s been a newspaper business, but times are changing. This isn’t Hunter Thompson’s stomping grounds anymore. Maybe the SMC Corsair staffers’ raising of beer glasses during the Journalism Association of Community Colleges (JACC) awards convention earlier this month was “the high-water mark — that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back,” when corporate influences and political correctness and perceived professional decorum got hold of our truth-seeking profession and wrung out the late-night sweat like Bob Woodward’s do-rag.
Nine members of the editorial staff at SMC’s newspaper, The Corsair, were disqualified from the journalism conference’s spot news coverage contests after they were caught drinking in public, and reportedly turned in by representatives of a competing school. Use of alcohol is prohibited at JACC events, regardless of age, and the misstep may have cost the improper imbibers a handful of journalism awards.
College students who are journalists who are due to capture some awards for their hard work drinking beers? Go figure.
Now, the students face additional penalties from the JACC for exchanging heated words with another team. The school could also mete out some additional punishment of its own.
When the powers that be sit down, they would be wise to pick up a copy of last week’s Corsair before projecting the pain. It would seem the journalists in question may have learned some hard lessons along the way to the dean’s office. On the front page was a news story about the JACC drinking flap, and while conflict-of-interest and objectivity questions still abound, at least the staffers chose to break the story first, doing what journalists do. In performing their duties as members of the media and being transparent, they showed a maturity and displayed a sense of accountability.
Delivering the news at the price of paying in some measure on a personal level is never an easy road, an ethical question that any journalist could face at one time or another. In that vein, the Corsair staffers showed a respect for the profession they are considering taking up.
At this point, a few beers among self-congratulating friends has already taken a heavy toll on the Corsair and its staff, temporarily derailing their careers and embarrassing them among colleagues and classmates. Punishment enough.
Lighten up, people. Toast those students who were forthcoming about the flap and took personal responsibility. That’s the real story here. The shock value of college students (budding journalists no less) throwing back beers pretty much faded before the ink on the story was dry.
He who has not imbibed should cast the first Hefeweizen.
SMC administrators and JACC officials should label this one “lesson learned” and file it in the bottom drawer... right next to their flasks.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 14, 2007. Read the original PDF.