The College Crier

First Video Installment of The College Crier

Daniel Bortz — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:03:50 +0000

Heinous Honors

Daniel Bortz — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:56:28 +0000

No More Bedroom Romp Near the Roomie: Tufts Daily
Headline: “New rules regulate sexual activity in Tufts U. dorm rooms.” Whatever happened to ‘the more the merrier?’

See what happens when you try to ban dorm-room sex?

Scandalous Sexual Innuendo: U. of Calif., San Diego’s The Guardian
Unintentional sex references — in a headline, no less — are too much to handle.

Pointless Name-Dropping in a Headline: Colorado Daily
If you can’t even pronounce the name, let alone recognize the guest speaker, then putting it in the headline is probably not the best idea.

Pat Yourself on the Back: Yale Daily News
Columnist: “Yale, it may be said, is the quintessential Ivy League school.” Try not to kiss your own school’s ass so much in the future.

Shameful Shoutouts

Daniel Bortz — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 01:28:01 +0000

Words of Wisdom: The Retriever Weekly
“Staff Ed: Lack of wireless connection could be affecting academic performance.” Ya think?

No Words for This One: The Diamondback
Some things just aren’t meant to be filmed.

Lucky Break: The Johns Hopkins News-Letter
One of your students “met his end at a samurai sword.” God’s light is shining down on you guys.

Smelly Substance: New Mexico Daily Lobo
Lede: “When the smell of corn dogs and fresh animal waste hits your nose, you know it’s time for the State Fair.” Gross, but 100 percent true.

Monday Mentions

Daniel Bortz — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:49:50 +0000

Three Months Later award: The Daily Orange
National magazines like Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stone, even Newsweek, covered the vampire trend in July. And now D.O. columnist Stacie Foster ‘unveils’ the bloodsuckers push in her weekly column. Touche, Stacie.

Multimedia Meltdown: The Pitt News
A video about freshmen moving into their dorm rooms isn’t exactly the best way to utilize your multimedia staff.

Goofy Giraffe Goodness: The Daily Reveille
Any means of putting a video about a giraffe on your newspaper’s Web site deserves a thumbs up.

HTML Whiz: The Tulane Hullabaloo
Captions like this one always remind us why the Internet is killing print journalism: “caption id=”attachment_6849″ align=”alignnone” width=”200″ caption=”MIMI”][/caption]

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Third Time’s a Charm

Daniel Bortz — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 00:59:45 +0000

Wrinkly Goodness: Arizona Daily Wildcat
Ahh, how a front-page photo of an old man throwing a boomerang works wonders for our eyes.

Priceless Student Reaction Video: The Cornell Daily Sun
Asking a bunch of students how they’re going to avoid catching swine flu yields some quality answers. Props on making Cornell students look dumb as bricks.

Impressive Vocab: The Daily Collegian at Penn State
You used the word “rebuke” in a headline…show offs.

Groundbreaking News: The Villanovan
Headline: “Flu Fair Provides Seasonal Flu Vaccines.” Enough said.

Pointless College Paper Awards, Part Deux

Daniel Bortz — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 16:44:48 +0000

From here on out, we’re just going to get straight into the awards with each post. After all, you probably just glance over this intro crap anyway.

Most Overused Headline: The Daily Pennsylvanian’s 34th Street Magazine
“Going Green?” Barf. Not only are we tired of reading these tree hugging pieces, but we’re certainly sick of hearing that trite cliche.

Raunchy Word Invention: The Daily Northwestern
You cooked up the word “sexting” and found a way to not only anchor an entire column around it, but also use it in a headline. Bravo.

Slow News Day: The Miami Hurricane
A 400-word story about hand sanitizers? Seriously?

Best Free PR News Section: The Chronicle at Duke
Congrats. You succeeded in running a news section chock-full of stories that look like they were written by the university’s PR minions themselves. And you guys say you’re an independent newspaper? Hah, right.

Pointless College Paper Awards, Round 1

Daniel Bortz — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 08:57:49 +0000

Us college journalists are a peculiar bunch. Many frequently skip class to cover a story because we think it’s more important than actually getting a college education. We spend countless hours poured over our own articles, in hopes of being viewed as professional journalists. We even write 1,000-word pieces on things like snuggies and hookah flavors and, gasp, pubic hair.

Yes, indeed, these are all real stories published by college publications. And in honor of how hard my fellow college journalists work, I’ve created this blog. May this serve as a storing house of sorts for the more bizarre college stories — the ones that don’t get an SPJ award, but are certainly worth a read.

Forget the good; we’re only talking about the bad and the ugly here.

So, without further ado, let’s begin:

Worst Weekend Tip award: The Daily Orange
The lede on this story explains it all: “If you happen to be in Brazil and have no plans this weekend,” wait, STOP. Please, spare us. The odds of an SU student paying a chance visit to our Brazilian friends down south: zero.

Perfect Cure for Insomnia award: The Daily Iowan.
You took what could have been a cool story about a zombie movie and turned it into a piece on funding that put us right to sleep.

Best Rhyming Headline: The Post at Ohio U.
Playing off a Dr. Seuss nursery rhyme in a headline = ingenious.

Those three are just a taste of what’s to come. Check back tomorrow for more.