In the 1970s the Washington Post was considered a second-rate newspaper until it discovered a second-rate burglary at the Watergate that eventually forced the resignation of a president. Since then, whatever the Washington Post publishes, people read.

For the State Hornet newspaper last week, it was an off-campus sewer blockage, forcing the closure of all campus restrooms for hours, that proved the Hornet news organization has come of age.

The Hornet got the scoop on the poop, so to speak.

But it was more than just doing a fine job on a single story. The Hornet demonstrated the power of its daily Hornet On-Line by quickly publishing three separate stories during the afternoon, each offering updated information about what could have turned into a public health crisis. When it was apparent late the same afternoon that there was a storm brewing over proposed cuts to the Children’s Center budget, the Hornet responded by posting a comprehensive story, alerting on-line readers.

By the next morning, the Hornet staff threw the switch on a very ambitious special on-line section complete with video clips of Saturday’s football game.

By Wednesday evening, the campus had been informed – via an on-line story and photo – that Associated Students, Inc. had voted to 5-4 close the evening program of the Children’s Center as well as slashing the budgets of other ASI programs.

And by the time you read this, the Hornet should have published dozens of other stories, photos, – and even video clips of a Beer Dawgs concert – to complement the weekly print issue you have in your hands. (Sorry about the ink on your fingers, that’s why journalists are called “ink-stained wretches.” If you are viewing this on-line, go pick up a print edition to get the full tactile experience.)

The State Hornet staff is shy about promoting its products, printed and on-line. But I’m not. Campus media history is being made right now, and students, faculty and staff are about to have greater access to information about what’s going on on campus than at any time since Sac State opened in1948.

So log on to www.StateHornet.com, right now.

Log on and find out what just happened.

Log on and get a glimpse of what will happen.

… While students grapple with slashed budgets, faculty members are grappling with drafting Faculty Activity Reports (part of the so-called faculty merit increase program) which are due Sept. 29. After last year’s experience, in which college deans largely ignored departmental recommendations (which were then ignored by the President), faculty are coming to understand Henry David Thoreau’s notion that “most men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Add desperate women to that, as data from the California Faculty Association shows that women faculty didn’t fare as well as their male counterparts in last year’s bonus derby.

For the record, my college dean did a smashingly fine job in evaluating my merit increase and is a swell all-around guy who I would nominate for the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, the Mother Teresa award – or at least to be on “Win Ben Stein’s Money” for a chance at that $5,000. And I’ll say so in my Faculty Activity Report. Hey, Bill, this Bud’s for you.

… When the university announced last week it would begin charging students to print in the computer labs, the gut reaction, of course, was “there they go again, sticking it to the students.” But when the proposal is considered in its entirety, it puts the burden of the printing costs where it belongs – on the students printing out in the labs the most. It’s probably more surprising that it took so long for the idea to move from concept to implementation given the tremendous growth of computer labs and student use.

The question, of course, is what new draconian measures will the lab techs decide to inflict on the students, now that getting permission to print will no longer resemble a scene from “Lord of the Flies?”

For that answer, I suggest you Log On – to www.StateHornet.com, of course.

Michael J. Fitzgerald is a professor of Journalism and a member of the CSUS Faculty Senate. He can be reached by telephone at 278-7896, by mail C/O The State Hornet- CSUS, 6000 J Street, Sacramento, CA, 95819 or by e-mail at [email protected].