MINUTES

Tuesday, Oct. 12, 2010 • 7 p.m.
SAS 1216 (2311 Stinson Dr.)

CALL TO ORDER at 7:04 p.m.

PRESENT: John Bullard, Paul McCauley, Dao Xuan Nguyen, Stephanie Edwards, Henry Allen, Michael Biesecker, Jim Rothschild, Susannah Brinkley, Mario Terry, Amanda Wilkins, Mollie Mohr, Thomas Anderson, Andrea Mason, Caleb Van Voorhis, Bradley Wilson, along with various members of the advisory boards and their facilitators

ABSENT: Louise Bannon, Denise Gonzales Crisp, Dean Phillips, Kelly Hook

NEW BUSINESS

• Election of a chair – Paul McCauley was elected by unanimous consent as chair
• Election of a vice chair — Amanda Wilkins was elected by unanimous consent as chair
• Election of a secretary — the group agreed to select a secretary at each meeting with Andrea Mason serving for this meeting
• Report updates
  • Nubian Message Editor Mario Terry reported that Twitter is helping to get the word out about the publication and that the staff has been meeting deadlines.
  • WKNC General Manager Thomas Anderson said 24 students completed the DJ training and they turned away about 70 students who expressed an interest.
  • Business Office Manager Andrea Mason said the business office has hired two new people to assist with advertising/sponsorship sales. The group had some discussion of income and noted that Technician income is down from projections which might require budget adjustments as the year progresses.

Advisory board meetings at times/location TBA:

• WKNC / Wolf TV Advisory Board: John Bullard, Henry Allen, Jim Rothschild, Dean Phillips, Caleb Van Voorhis, Thomas Anderson (Jamie Lynn Gilbert, facilitator) (SAS 1216)
• Technician/Nubian Message Advisory Board: Paul McCauley, Michael Biesecker, Stephanie Edwards, Amanda Wilkins, Mario Terry (Tyler Dukes, facilitator) (Time/location, TBA)
• Business Office Advisory Board: Andrea Mason (Krystal Pittman, facilitator) (Time/location, TBA)
• Agromeck/Windhover Advisory Board: Dao Xuan Nguyen, Denise Gonzales Crisp, Louise Bannon, Susannah Brinkley, Mollie Mohr  (Martha Collins, facilitator) (SAS 1220)

ADJOURN at 7:30 p.m.

EXECUTIVE SESSION
The Student Media Board of Directors may adjourn into executive session to discuss matters of litigation, potential litigation or personnel.

REPORTS

Agromeck
Submitted by Susannah Brinkley

Personnel — As I announced at the last Student Media Board meeting, Kathryn Glaser, the assignments editor, resigned. I have not yet filled the position and have been doing the work myself. I am on the lookout for a replacement, but I have yet to find one.

Training — The Agromeck staff attended a training session with New York Post designer Kyle Ellis when he came to visit. The staff reacted positively to this training session. I am enforcing the reflection paper as a response to the training sessions. Photo Editor Marisa Akers and I are set to attend the Associated Collegiate Press/College Media Advisers conference in Louisville, Ky. at the end of October.

Recruitment — We have had several designers and writers to leave the staff for various reasons, as is expected at the beginning of every semester.

Interest in writing picked up after the last board meeting, but has since dropped. After the next deadline, I intend to be in touch with the journalism and communications departments. Several Technician staff members have been generous with their time and talents for the time being.

The staff counts are as follows: Nine designers, two writers, one copy editor, one ad staff member

Revenue — We sold one 2010 yearbook in August. Sales for the 2011 yearbook are now open, as are senior ad sales. The yearbook sales website, myyearbooksales.com, allows the Agromeck to sell books online. We are offering 25 percent off both books and senior ads before Homecoming, and plan to offer other promotions in the future.

Promotions — Promotions Manager Amanda Corbett staffed the Parents & Families Pre-Game Party Oct. 2, along with several members of the staff. Together, they distributed fliers about both yearbook sales and senior ad. Corbett said she has received several e-mail inquiries.

Corbett is also working on a senior ad package for student organizations, such as club sports teams or sororities/fraternities who might want to put together one ad for all of their graduating seniors.

The Web — The “Photo of the Week” is turning out to be both a nice weekly addition to the Agromeck website, but also a retention and motivation tool for photographers. Photo Editor Marisa Akers and Technician Photo Editor Sarah Tudor have been doing a great job of this.

We are also trying to do more photo slideshows for the Agromeck website. We completed on Bugfest Sept. 11, and hope to do more. I have talked with Sports Editor Brent Kitchen about putting together a monthly “Sports Recap” slideshow for the website, and we plan to do this at the end of each month, beginning with September.

Coverage — We are still planning two to four events per week, while still maintaining a focus on sports coverage with around three to four per month. At the end of the September pages, we break even with exactly six months of coverage and approximately halfway through our allotted 352 pages. We could cut down on coverage to save room for later months, senior portraits, senior ads and commercial ads.

We are planning some more alternative story packages, including a “Top 20 classes to take at N.C. State” package and a State Fair package for October.

Deadlines — We had a deadline of 16 pages Sept. 17. The staggered deadline schedule is working so far to allow extra time for indexing and revisions before pages are sent to the plant. The next deadline is Oct. 13.

Business office
Submitted by Andrea Mason

CLICK HERE for PDF version of budget update.

Revenue — We are not meeting revenue at its full potential. We started off strong in the $17,000′s, went down to the 12,000′s and are now selling this period about $7,300 average per week. Granted the beginning of the year sales are always at their peak, we still need to boost sales from their current standings. Here is a look at the actual sales per week:
- Week 4: $7,495
- Week 5: $5,773
- Week 6: $6,920
- Week 7: $8,907
We budgeted to raise $10,200 in a five-day week.

Personnel — The hiring of three new ad reps is in order, and two have already been hired. This has been done to boost sales. Seven ad reps are now on staff, joining three design team members and five office assistants

Training — I attended the Southern University Newspapers Conference in Athens, Georgia with Krystal and Bryant Robbins (an ad rep). After returning from this experience, we held a training on that Saturday to share with the rest of the staff the knowledge we gainedfrom this conference.
The training was effective because I feel as though I learned a lot of great new things about how to conduct sales and encourage my staff to get out there and sell.

Deadlines — Clients have been pushing the limits with the ad deadlines and are then confused why we cannot get their ad in to tomorrow’s paper when they send it the night before. We have recently become more strict with our deadlines and informed our customers of them to cancel further confusion. Other than the clients being late on deadlines, the staff is doing great. Everyone gets all their ads, timesheets, and everything else in on time that I could ask for.

Also, the atmosphere in the office has been brought to my ad reps attention. I love the environment here to be fun and friendly, but at the same time this is a place of work. I told the staff that they need to get down to business and focus on sales and boost them or there would be severe changes that I do not feel necessary. I am monitoring their sales over the next four weeks to see if they will improve their work habits. Otherwise, I will have to make some strict changes.

Nubian Message
Submitted by Mario Terry

NO REPORT

Technician
Submitted by Amanda Wilkins

Staffing: I still have not hired a design editor or Viewpoint editor. Biko Tushinde has agreed to continue managing the design section, because we have not been able to find any qualified candidates. He  will continue to train new designers. The design section has acquired about 10 new designers, most have no prior experience. I am still managing the Viewpoint section. No candidates have come forward to apply for the position and the Viewpoint section has only acquired one new columnist since the last board meeting. About six to either people have started training to be copy editors and we have had two work one night. The managing editor aims to have enough copy editors so they only have to work one night a week. The entire staff is approximately 100 writers, designers, photographers and editors.

Training: Tyler Dukes has been keeping the training calendar up-to-date with interesting speakers and programs. The sessions ranged from design to writing to leadership development. Kyle Ellis, a designer from the New York Post, came to visit with the staff for three days and the feedback from the staff was very positive. Since the last board meeting, time sheets were due and employees were required to do reflections on the trainings they attended. Overall, the reflections were positive, though there were a few people who did not see the value in the trainings they attended. Approximately 20 people will not get paid because they did not complete a training. Most were from Wolf-TV and the features section. There were two pay sheets turned in from previous time periods.

Technology: Camera gear has been working mostly. Occasionally there are errors in the 20D, but it still continues to work. The 16-35 Canon lens has been sent off to be fixed. College Publisher has recently changed hands, but no noticeable changes are seen. The platform locks up occasionally, but is sufficient overall. There is always room for improvement.

Coverage: The Technician staff has done a sufficient job covering campus activities and issues. The staff is very diverse so section editors use the staff to gather story ideas. They also gather ideas from e-mails and outside suggestions. Viewpoint is still in the process of refocusing, but has improved since the last board meeting.

Deadline: Meeting deadline has been a very pressing issue with the staff. We have not improved since the last board meeting. There are many reasons for missing deadline: stories fall through, sports is late due to staff members having late classes, not enough experienced designers, communication needs improvement and trying to work out complex designs too late in the evening. The staff is brainstorming ideas to solve these issues.

Corrections: I have updated the corrections page and consistently published in the print addition any corrections or clarifications. Causes for corrections vary, except for Student Government coverage. Writers need training regarding terminology with Student Government. All letters to the editor hare printed, or published online if there is not enough room to fit them in the print edition.

I published a column about gay marriage that raised many issues internally. Members of the campus community responded by submitting letters which we published in print and online. As a result, columnists now work with me to develop topics arguments.

On Oct. 4, Joanna Benagas wrote an article about Parent and Family Services. We later discovered she is employed by the office, a clear conflict of interest. After talking with the deputy news editor in charge of assigning the story, there was a miscommunication about her employment. We published a full-disclosure in a subsequent issue and online.

On Sept. 23, I discovered that we published a photo credited to a student photographer that was, in actuality, a photo by a professional photographer and distributed through Getty Images. After speaking with the writer and features editor, the writer admitted the professor she spoke to gave her the image. The writer and features editor were reminded of the copyright policy and the staff was also reminded.

Windhover
Submitted by Mollie Mohr

Windhover’s most recent updates have been focused mainly on the completion of hiring a staff and increasing publicity and ideas for Windhover’s presence on campus.

After a week of interviewing 10 potential candidates, I hired two designers: Chelsea Amato as junior designer and Jacqueline Rojanatavorn as a senior designer alongside Jeremy Purser and Courtney Johnson. All of the designers are graphic design students.

Along with this team of editors, we have 10 people volunteering to serve in the literary committees: prose and poetry. All of the committee grad and undergrad students are excited to increase Windhover’s presence on campus and increase quality submissions.

The designers’ pay is set, and the new designers will meet with Martha Collins after fall break to get them on the payroll.
Senior designer 1: $1300
Senior designer 2 $436.50 (until December)
Senior designer 3: $556.75
Junior designer 4: $556.75

Publicity ideas for Windhover are continuing. After fall break, the designers will design posters and ads to house in other Student Media outlets and websites. Jeremy Purser has already met with the printer’s representative, Frank Pulley, about logistics with amount of money allocated for printing, number of pages, number of copies, etc.
Windhover staff members are working with WKNC to produce a public service announcement for submitting to Windhover. It will be coming on air relatively soon.

WKNC
Submitted by Thomas Anderson

Revenue: Non-fee income (money in the bank), as of Sept. 30: $8,223.94
Tir Na Nog — $3,900
Regular donor announcements — $1,580
Benefit Concerts — $613
Promotions — $800
Live Nation — $1,285
Other — $5.94

Our monthly dance parties continue to be good source of income, at least $200 per event.

Expenditures: We may need to replace one or perhaps two power amplifiers in the future. PAs don’t take the signal with them when they fail, but it is optimal to have as many back ups as possible. Our engineering budget was zapped with the replacement of the Omnia, so we’ll have to find a way to access funds if the PA situation becomes immediately pressing.

Personnel: The training class concludes on Monday, so we’ll be welcoming a new corps of 27 DJs to the staff. I’m pleased with the class, and I look forward to their contributing to the station. This will be bring our staff total to around 140.

Training: WKNC has allowed the monthly training requirements to fall by the wayside, but we are reinstating enforcement of this requirement as of October. No training, other than the training class, has gone on since the last board meeting.

Technology: Other than the PA issue, there are no recent issues with technology. Our software continues to function well. AVAir hasn’t malfunctioned recently. I would like to “do something” with the out-of-use news studio, but it remains to be determined what is readily feasible. I would also like to look into the HD radio path, but that is several years down the road.

Deadlines: The staff continues to meet what we can call “deadlines” as well as can be expected. I am not certain as to exactly how many people we have backed up on payroll. Our webmaster is the most significant back-pay that comes to mind, only because I can think of certain projects he has done (very well, at that) which have not been paid for. I don’t have a quantifiable measure for deadlines.

Coverage: Our public affairs department has greatly extended our PSA service to campus organization, and Eye on the Triangle has continued to cover campus events well. I would like to have EOT get better and better each semester. Ideally, every student at State will know what the show is. It’s a cool concept, and it has the potential to attract new staff members.

Wolf TV
Submitted by Caleb VanVoorhis

Revenue — No money has gone into or come out of the organization so far. We are still waiting on several apartment complexes to buy advertisements on our channel.

Personnel — There has been a decrease in staff from the beginning of the year. As tests and other priorities start to come up people have started to drift away. We now sit about 15 people at the weekly meetings. Other people are technically staff members but are not around much. No current Wolf TV staff members are being paid.

Coverage — We’ve done well at covering the major events on campus. We’ve had people at every football game and every soccer game. We covered Shack-a-thon for Fox College Sports.

Deadlines — We have worked out a new operations plan where every staff member edits his or her own individual package as opposed to dropping it off for someone else to edit. It saves time and arguments. This is letting the packages get out sooner because in the past they were taking a long time to be edited and were not being uploaded in time to be relevant.

Ethics — We attempted to do a small concert series in the theater down stairs. Due to a lack of attendance, poor planning, and the overall unacceptable quality of the events they have been canceled for the rest of the semester.

CLICK HERE for PDF version of budget update.

Society for Collegiate Journalists
Submitted by May Chung, president

The Society for Collegiate Journalists has had a busy semester thus far. At the beginning of the year, SCJ inducted four new members: Joanna Banegas, Technican; Michael Jones, WKNC; Kate Shefte, Technician; and Nathan Hardin, Technician.

SCJ members also celebrated Constitution Day by handing out candy and flyers on the Brickyard to raise awareness on campus about the national freedoms granted by the signing of that fateful document. To get students involved, SCJ also painted the Freedom Expression Tunnel and created PSAs for WKNC to play on air. Without the Constitution, we would not have our basic rights, including free speech, which is the more prevalent to our organization, as we are comprised of various members of Student Media.

In honor of Banned Book Week, SCJ members read excerpts from challenged Harry Potter series and handed out pamphlets out on the brickyard. Additionally, SCJ partnered with NCSU libraries to offer “Banned Book Soundwave,” a project that allows various members of the campus community, including Chancellor Randy Woodson, to read excerpts of their favorite challenged book. The project shines light on our freedoms of speech and open information that have been thwarted by acts of censorship.

SCJ is planning for a panel discussion for Freedom of Speech Week regarding the first amendment rights: freedom of religion in conjunction with freedom of speech. Possible panelists to include Muslim Student Association members, departmental faculty with knowledge in philosophy and Middle East studies, a Baptist member, and a representative from the Tea Party organization. SCJ also plans to hold an induction ceremony for new members to be held at a later date.