COMM 291 - editorial meeting(s) / reflective essay on 'Years with Ross'

Emailed to students in COMM 291 (special topics - magazine editing) at 8:04 a.m. today:

Hi Guys --

We'd better get started on The Sleepy Weasel ... we'll get in a mad rush "crashing" the magazine whatever we do, but we ought to sit down and take a look at what we've got. Why don't you get back to me ASAPest and let me know what times it would be convenient for us to meet? We can confer separately ... don't necessarily have to sit down together under the apple tree.

My schedule is attached.

In the meantime, why don't you get started on "The Years With Ross?" It's an assignment I have to make in order to make working on The Weasel fit the requirements for an independent study course, but I think you'll get something out of reading it.

A couple of questions to keep in mind as you read ... and as you write the inevitable 750- to 1,000-word reflective essay on your reading. Post it to your blog when you finish the book, oh, in the next week or two:

-- James Thurber was one of the senior writing/editing people at The New Yorker for a long time when Harold Ross was editor. How did these people work together to get a magazine on the street? What was Ross' management style? What was their attitude toward literature, journalism, business side, in short all the things that go together to get a publication on the street?

-- What can *you* learn from this? Compare what Thurber says about The New Yorker with your experience on a magazine, a paper, a radio station, a fund-raising drive ... any collaborative effort you've been a part of that involves communicating with a public ... and reflect on: (1) what's the same, and what's different; and (2) what specific points can you use in future publication projects (including, of course, The Weasel, The Bulldog and/or projects for an off-campus not-for-profit organization).

-- Thurber is a tricky writer, there's more to him a lot of the time than what's immediately apparent on the surface. And his attitude toward Ross is, well, let's just say it's pretty complicated. But he was also an astute observer of human nature, and he had a gift for summing up a person or a situation with a well-crafted phrase or two. What, if anything, can you learn from reading him that might help you in your own writing?

My advice: Read the book quicky, and read it with these questions in mind. You're not so much savoring the work as mining it for information. (Think strip-mine operator driving a D-9 bulldozer.) I'll post this message to The Mackerel Wrapper so you don't have to clutter your in-box with it.

If any questions, pls don't hesitate etc. Contact me anyway, with your schedules, and don't hesitate about that either!

-- Doc