9 ms·

This is why (college) old media is failing

63 points by adelevie 17y ago

adelevie 17y ago
If the post confuses you, I'll try and clear a few things up. This paper is still giving stipends to editors and senior reporters. They can't take even a small cut in their stipends to provide a modest stipend for someone whose skills are exceedingly more marketable than the ability to write in AP-style.
- brezina 17y ago
  jesh. I went there. That is my college paper. And this disappoints me. It is a good reflection on the newspaper industry
  - shaddi 17y ago
    Eh. They're not all like this. My college paper pays their web folks, and their online editor actually took it upon herself to learn some programming so she could help out and understand the technical side. I was pretty damn impressed actually.
    - adelevie 17y ago
      That's very refreshing. What paper is this?
      - deleted 17y ago
        [deleted]
      - shaddi 17y ago
        UNC, Daily Tar Heel.
        DavisShaver 17y ago
        who was it? I remember there was a guy from the Tar Heel very involved with CoPress for a while.
        danielbachhuber 17y ago
        Andrew Dunn sat on our Board when we were a non-profit, and has been involved in the conversation about CoPress and college media since the beginning, but he's been the Editor-in-Chief
        shaddi 17y ago
        Not he, she. @saragregory
  - adelevie 17y ago
    I'm still a student at Penn State and I used to work at that paper. The demanded skillset has increased while the stipend has cratered to zero. ps: I'm aware of your accomplishments. You make the Penn State startup community proud! Best of luck with Xobni!
    - jsb 17y ago
      Part of the trouble is also that the decision makers in charge of adding staff and directing the digital version(s) of the Daily Collegian are not well versed in the technology themselves. They probably just copied and pasted the job post from last time and added in whatever new they needed, without knowing that these can be extremely diverse skillsets. "Let's make an iPhone app! Add it to the job description!" A lot of people think if you're "good with computers," you can do it all.
      - jrwoodruff 17y ago
        This is true of many non-college newspapers even. It's changing, slowly, but many of the people in charge today started when linotype machines were the norm, and had been for the last 6 decades. Newspapers are (still) not used to the modern pace of technology. My last job, the editorial system was more than 12 years old, and was still running on the original boxes 12-year-old dell boxes. Some had no USB ports, most had no sound cards.
    - DavisShaver 17y ago
      I didn't know Xobni was made by a Penn State grad!
      - adelevie 17y ago
        Penn State has given birth to several prominent startups: YNOT Advertising (LionMenus), Xobni, and Weebly (YC). If you want, you can add FanGamb (DreamIt) to the list :)
        brezina 17y ago
- sobriquet 17y ago
  At the Daily Bruin all interns were unpaid. Typically after 6-12 months of part-time work (in any editorial department) there was opportunity to move up to senior staff positions and earn a stipend. That staff would put in 40-80 weeks on top of a course load, earning $2-3 per hour. I think it's very fair to bring on an unpaid dev intern and then let them work towards the stipend just like editorial positions. I wouldn't be surprised if the paper also employs a full time sysadmin/dev, for a real wage.
  - QNguyen 17y ago
    I'm at UCLA now, and over the last few weeks I've seen front page classifieds for DB hiring front end and backend devs. They're definitely paid hourly (I think I saw 14/hour, but I may be wrong)
    - stjarnljuset 17y ago
      Ha, I actually went out to grab a paper because I recalled seeing this too. Those ads were for Student Media which I guess Daily Bruin is a part of. It advertised "pay competitive with any on campus." As for other other jobs on campus, I saw that the Volunteer Center was hiring "Wordpress programmers" for $19/hr a couple months ago.
      - QNguyen 17y ago
        Now I wish I had paid more attention in PIC 40A this quarter... By the way, UCLA HNers need to do a meet up
        stjarnljuset 17y ago
        I've only identified about 4 UCLA HNers, one of which tried to do an LA meetup without much success http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=804191 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=804191
- andylei 17y ago
  College newspapers don't have much money these days. Print advertising is drying up and monetizing web content is not working well. At my college newspaper, we don't pay anybody, editors included, (although we do have financial aid), yet we have a dedicated web staff. The newspaper isn't really different from any other club. It's a lot of work, but you don't join a club to get paid, you join to meet people, work on interesting problems, and learn about something different.
morisy 17y ago
This ad is frighteningly similar to the ones out there in the real world at all but the most progressive papers, only difference is they pay a little bit better.
- adelevie 17y ago
  The problem is that tech people can go anywhere with their skills. They're not limited to journalism. This means that newsrooms should make it a priority to at least be somewhat competitive when it comes to hiring technical talent.
  - afterburner 17y ago
    Exactly. For the aspiring journalists, working at the college paper is a sweet way to get an edge in the journalism world, something very few other jobs at that level can provide. For the web developer, this is merely one of thousands of opportunities, and holds no special lure for being the school paper. Clearly, the journalists/editors here are looking at it from their limited point of view. Given that, the tone of the ad is somewhat disrespectful ("you have to know everything, but we'll pay you nothing")
    - Locke1689 17y ago
      I like to think of an internship as a kind of apprenticeship. In some cases, the apprenticeship is worth it. For example, a tech internship at Google or Microsoft lets you work on some of the most widely used software in the world with some extremely competent people. In this instance perhaps being unpaid wouldn't really be a big deal -- the real value would be in the experience you get and the things you learn. Working for a college newspaper, however, is unlikely to provide a good CS student with anything more than they'd learn on their own with a rather useless name to drop at the end. While working for a college newspaper may be a high accomplishment in the journalism world, it doesn't really mean all that much in the tech world. Also, Microsoft and Google pay. They pay a lot.
- ZachPruckowski 17y ago
  The problem is that a company run by content creators (and news/opinion articles are content just like film/music is) is going to tend to see the distribution of that content as ancillary to its creation. They then see the IT/web department as being on the same plane as the delivery-boys in terms of importance.
johnohara 17y ago
Just bought a Powerball ticket. $114M woohoo! My odds of winning and her odds of finding someone are about the same.
- ZachPruckowski 17y ago
  You know what's gonna happen? Whichever boyfriend (or guy with a crush)[1] of a reporter there has the most tech knowledge is gonna get dragged into taking it over. I've been in that situation enough times (though usually with event stuff, not programming). That's basically the only shot they have at getting free skilled labor. [1] - Not that girlfriends can't be programmers, but college girls seem to be better at roping guys into doing work for them than the other way around.
iandbrown 17y ago
The collegian's web site runs on a windows server. lol'in at LAMP.
- raquo 17y ago
  Well, theoretically, maybe they would like to switch platforms if the "intern" could do it?
  - sliverstorm 17y ago
    Just means they don't know enough about the acronym to say 'WAMP' instead. Theoretically, it could mean they want to switch. Theoretically.
brandnewlow 17y ago
Why the heck is it still so hard to make iPhone applications? You'd think some smart HNer would realize that every publication on the planet wants to have its own iPhone app. But few of them can afford to pay someone $10k to build one. I bet a lot of them could afford to pay $500 bucks though...
- DavisShaver 17y ago
  There are a bunch of companies (check out Scoble's YouTube feed for a few) that do this for a few hundred dollars.
- loumf 17y ago
  http://appmakr.com/ http://appmakr.com/
rohin 17y ago
Most college newspapers actually outsource the content management and hosting for their websites to a company called College Publisher (owned by Viacom). College Publisher takes 100% of the advertising revenue in exchange for hosting the site and providing a CMS for "free". It's a small but lucrative niche for Viacom. By not giving up 100% of its online advertising revenue, this paper is actually well ahead of its peers.
- adelevie 17y ago
  In this regard, you are absolutely right. The decision not to use College Publisher a few years back was very smart. However, the system is relatively old and tough to extend. These are solvable problems, assuming you have a capable web staff to handle it.
- HannibalLecter 17y ago
  >By not giving up 100% of its online advertising revenue, this paper is actually well ahead of its peers. Most colleges see very little in terms of revenue from advertising. They charge enough to cover expenses and wouldn't dream of changing their pricing to become profitable.
- awa 17y ago
  I doubt a college newspaper would rake in the moolah with online advertisement. I remember my college paper getting most of their paid ads from local restaurants and businesses They don't look very smart by not taking Viacom on their offer and then asking for a volunteer web developer to work on the site.
bfirsh 17y ago
At my student paper in the UK we are all unpaid volunteers. Is it any different in the States?
- adelevie 17y ago
  The Daily Collegian gives "scholarships" (stipends) to all editors and some senior reporters. These stipends don't come close to a wage, but it's something. Giving something to all editors and some reporters and then giving nothing to a web developer is insulting.
  - scott_s 17y ago
    I don't understand why it's insulting. I assume that the editors and senior reporters have been on the paper for at least an academic year - otherwise, I don't see how they could become editors or senior reporters. So the little money they have goes to the people who've put significant amounts of time into the paper. The advertisement is for a new staff member. I assume new reporters don't get stipends either. So I don't see why it's insulting to treat this staff member the same as other staff members.
    - ZachPruckowski 17y ago
      Simultaneously, the advertisement is for the position in charge of their website and online presence (which is to say a decent portion of their operations), and is thus a fairly senior position. Stuff just gets more complicated when money's involved. It's one thing to ask for a hand with something you're not making money off of, and another thing to ask for free help on a project that's paying you.
      - scott_s 17y ago
        I think you and others are looking at it from a normal business transactions perspective. College papers aren't a business. I would be surprised if their advertisement revenue even covered operation costs. Students work on college papers for the same reason they attend class: to learn. Also, I think you're using "senior" in a different manner than I. I'm using it to mean seniority, or length of time spent working on the paper. You're using it to denote importance.
ZachPruckowski 17y ago
I don't see how this is different from the real world. I see lots of ads for "Unpaid Internships" that want extensive knowledge of the field and expect you to already have the skills and experience the internship is supposed to teach you.
- imack 17y ago
  My other favorite is looking for a technical person for whom they will "split the profits". Your local CraigsList "computer gigs" section will be filled with these. My favorite recent: "We are a couple of mompreneurs who are launching a business geared to moms. We are looking for someone, preferably a mom so you will already have knowledge of the target market, to help us with website design, online promotion etc. etc." http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/rds/cpg/1621222670.html http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/rds/cpg/1621222670.html
  - philk 17y ago
    That's hilarious. Doubtless they'll be offering a smaller share of the profits as they're bringing their all important idea to the table. I think I'm going to try this stunt with every service I consume. "Yes, you see, you give me a haircut for free and then we split any resultant profits. 70-30, because the haircut was my idea".
  - afterburner 17y ago
    Maybe web developers can sell themselves as "Marketing specialists". There seems to be a higher expectation of good pay with that among the non-tech savvy...
- starev 17y ago
  The difference is that you assume that the learning + industry experience + chance at a job later will make up for the not-being-paid. In this case, there is no potential for getting a foot in the door, no industry experience, and the 'learning' is questionable, particularly when you could use the same skills to make $25-50 an hour freelancing.
oconnore 17y ago
My University paper did something like this. They were looking for someone to do some website design and maintenance for them at $300 a semester, and I offered to help. Not because eleven dollars a week rewards the effort I would put in, but because I felt like helping my University fix their embarrassing web presence. In the end, despite the fact that I had worked with them before, and came recommended by the CS department, they demanded a full resume and a burned CD with examples of previous work before they would even talk to me! They ended up with an English major who "had experience with Dreamweaver", and clearly didn't mind jumping through hoops for negligible reward :P
- adelevie 17y ago
  It seems most senior staff for college papers (the journalism majors) think that they can very easily apply their expertise and authority of print journalism (most of what's being taught in journo programs) to the web. It doesn't work and creates insulting instances like your story.
el_dot 17y ago
Applicants need a working knowledge of ASP/ASP.net, MySQL, Movable Type, HTML/CSS and general web server experience. Knowledge of JavaScript, LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) servers, iPhone development knowledge, Adobe Flash/Flex is a plus. I guess this is what PG meant when he said: The pointy-haired boss has no idea how this software has to work, and can't tell one programming language from another, and yet he knows what language you should write it in.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- ZachPruckowski 17y ago
  In this case, it's apparent that they have a pre-existing system. Of course, why that system is in both ASP and PHP on both Linux and Windows, I have no clue. Given that they have MySQL on there twice, I'm going to guess it was a "write down every technical term that anyone knows" kinda thing.
- pchickey 17y ago
  Sure - the editor in chief, or whoever on staff wrote that description, doesn't really know ASP from LAMP. But they do know the current programmers use ASP.net and MT, and will need to continue using ASP.net and MT for the time being. In the past three years, the collegian website has added a lot of great features, and the design has improved considerably. It looks like they're still stuck on an old ASP backend, but the students responsible for the front page have been moving in the right direction. Unfortunately, its a pretty huge undertaking for unpaid (or close) full time students to replace a decent working site with a decade of archives with with a Rails app. In many ways, the Collegian is a representative good college daily - there are many in much deeper trouble for failing to grasp the basics of good journalism, not the basics of web 2.0. (Disclosure: Former Collegian photo staff)
  - adelevie 17y ago
    The Collegian web site was cutting edge a few years ago. My predecessors really did a hell of a job cooking up a brand new system (built on MT). The previous system, from what I read, was archaic. Sadly not much has changed over the last couple years and without proper staff, nothing really will change.
Mankhool 17y ago
There are more than 600 college newspapers in the US. This means that an opportunity exists in these hyper-local markets to also report community news and, perhaps, create something that may "save" (I know that's the wrong word) the newspaper publishing industry.
- marciovm123 17y ago
  We're working on that. e-mail me if you'd like to talk =). -Marcio
marknutter 17y ago
And they allowed commenting... big mistake.
- marciovm123 17y ago
  what's wrong with commenting on news stories? Isn't that what we do here?
knieveltech 17y ago
Based on this posting it's obvious they need to come to grips with a few things. 1. unpaid internships are not a sought after opportunity for programmers. If a coder wants to build work experience it's a trivial exercise to track down an Open Source project to contribute to. Benefits include working with some of the best developers in the world on projects that are used around the world. By way of comparison what can you offer? 2. iPhone app developers are in demand. So much so it's easy to find someone willing to pay you to learn how to write one. 3. You've listed .NET and LAMP, this is a clear indication your server space is an unsupportable trainwreck and your IS/IT services are operating with no clear goals in mind or are being interefered with by management. Going forward they should seriously consider picking a single technology stack for your web services, it'll cut the support workload in half and make finding talent a lot simpler. Anyone versed in both LAMP and .NET is out getting paid $80k+ a year with full benefits. Journalism majors might still be jumping at the chance for an unpaid internship but developers definitely are not. Tell the university to cough up a budget for the position or (much better) start making journalism students take web design and development classes. After three years building websites for the 3rd largest newspaper company in the US I can tell you that there's nothing quite as useless as a journalist who doesn't understand the web.
CitizenKane 17y ago
I used to be the online manager at my college newspaper (http://mndaily.com http://mndaily.com). Working in the newspaper publishing environment is challenging for programmers. For instance, while online advertising made up a sizeable portion of the paper's revenue many of the salepeople at the paper had no idea where the ad spots were on the site or even what a CPM is. Also challenging was working with different departments that had different workflows. We had to support the editorial process, the sales process, the hiring process, etc. But wanting to get programmers for nothing is crazy. The programmers at the Daily were among the highest paid employees (only editor-in-chief, controller, and president were paid more than the online staff I believe) there and it would still takes months to fill a position with someone who had any competence (knew HTML and could write something more than Hello World in PHP). While I know times are tough this is pretty disgraceful. College newspapers offer a good opportunity to get training in programming and allow prospective coders to start working with teams and real projects. But doing it for no pay really makes it a non-option.
gxs 17y ago
I'm surprised they didn't want a minimum 10 years experience in iphone app dev experience.
joelhaus 17y ago
Not enough vision here... its a potentially great way to get free press and ad space for your project while learning a bit about all the newspapers that will be desparate for any programmer with knowledge of a dying industry can be saved.

63 points by adelevie 17y ago

If the post confuses you, I'll try and clear a few things up. This paper is still giving stipends to editors and senior reporters. They can't take even a small cut in their stipends to provide a modest stipend for someone whose skills are exceedingly more marketable than the ability to write in AP-style.

brezina 17y ago
jesh. I went there. That is my college paper. And this disappoints me. It is a good reflection on the newspaper industry
- shaddi 17y ago
  Eh. They're not all like this. My college paper pays their web folks, and their online editor actually took it upon herself to learn some programming so she could help out and understand the technical side. I was pretty damn impressed actually.
  - adelevie 17y ago
    That's very refreshing. What paper is this?
    - deleted 17y ago
      [deleted]
    - shaddi 17y ago
      UNC, Daily Tar Heel.
      - DavisShaver 17y ago
        who was it? I remember there was a guy from the Tar Heel very involved with CoPress for a while.
        danielbachhuber 17y ago
        Andrew Dunn sat on our Board when we were a non-profit, and has been involved in the conversation about CoPress and college media since the beginning, but he's been the Editor-in-Chief
        shaddi 17y ago
        Not he, she. @saragregory
- adelevie 17y ago
  I'm still a student at Penn State and I used to work at that paper. The demanded skillset has increased while the stipend has cratered to zero. ps: I'm aware of your accomplishments. You make the Penn State startup community proud! Best of luck with Xobni!
  - jsb 17y ago
    Part of the trouble is also that the decision makers in charge of adding staff and directing the digital version(s) of the Daily Collegian are not well versed in the technology themselves. They probably just copied and pasted the job post from last time and added in whatever new they needed, without knowing that these can be extremely diverse skillsets. "Let's make an iPhone app! Add it to the job description!" A lot of people think if you're "good with computers," you can do it all.
    - jrwoodruff 17y ago
      This is true of many non-college newspapers even. It's changing, slowly, but many of the people in charge today started when linotype machines were the norm, and had been for the last 6 decades. Newspapers are (still) not used to the modern pace of technology. My last job, the editorial system was more than 12 years old, and was still running on the original boxes 12-year-old dell boxes. Some had no USB ports, most had no sound cards.
  - DavisShaver 17y ago
    I didn't know Xobni was made by a Penn State grad!
    - adelevie 17y ago
      Penn State has given birth to several prominent startups: YNOT Advertising (LionMenus), Xobni, and Weebly (YC). If you want, you can add FanGamb (DreamIt) to the list :)
      - brezina 17y ago
sobriquet 17y ago
At the Daily Bruin all interns were unpaid. Typically after 6-12 months of part-time work (in any editorial department) there was opportunity to move up to senior staff positions and earn a stipend. That staff would put in 40-80 weeks on top of a course load, earning $2-3 per hour. I think it's very fair to bring on an unpaid dev intern and then let them work towards the stipend just like editorial positions. I wouldn't be surprised if the paper also employs a full time sysadmin/dev, for a real wage.
- QNguyen 17y ago
  I'm at UCLA now, and over the last few weeks I've seen front page classifieds for DB hiring front end and backend devs. They're definitely paid hourly (I think I saw 14/hour, but I may be wrong)
  - stjarnljuset 17y ago
    Ha, I actually went out to grab a paper because I recalled seeing this too. Those ads were for Student Media which I guess Daily Bruin is a part of. It advertised "pay competitive with any on campus." As for other other jobs on campus, I saw that the Volunteer Center was hiring "Wordpress programmers" for $19/hr a couple months ago.
    - QNguyen 17y ago
      Now I wish I had paid more attention in PIC 40A this quarter... By the way, UCLA HNers need to do a meet up
      - stjarnljuset 17y ago
        I've only identified about 4 UCLA HNers, one of which tried to do an LA meetup without much success http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=804191 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=804191
andylei 17y ago
College newspapers don't have much money these days. Print advertising is drying up and monetizing web content is not working well. At my college newspaper, we don't pay anybody, editors included, (although we do have financial aid), yet we have a dedicated web staff. The newspaper isn't really different from any other club. It's a lot of work, but you don't join a club to get paid, you join to meet people, work on interesting problems, and learn about something different.

morisy 17y ago

This ad is frighteningly similar to the ones out there in the real world at all but the most progressive papers, only difference is they pay a little bit better.

adelevie 17y ago
The problem is that tech people can go anywhere with their skills. They're not limited to journalism. This means that newsrooms should make it a priority to at least be somewhat competitive when it comes to hiring technical talent.
- afterburner 17y ago
  Exactly. For the aspiring journalists, working at the college paper is a sweet way to get an edge in the journalism world, something very few other jobs at that level can provide. For the web developer, this is merely one of thousands of opportunities, and holds no special lure for being the school paper. Clearly, the journalists/editors here are looking at it from their limited point of view. Given that, the tone of the ad is somewhat disrespectful ("you have to know everything, but we'll pay you nothing")
  - Locke1689 17y ago
    I like to think of an internship as a kind of apprenticeship. In some cases, the apprenticeship is worth it. For example, a tech internship at Google or Microsoft lets you work on some of the most widely used software in the world with some extremely competent people. In this instance perhaps being unpaid wouldn't really be a big deal -- the real value would be in the experience you get and the things you learn. Working for a college newspaper, however, is unlikely to provide a good CS student with anything more than they'd learn on their own with a rather useless name to drop at the end. While working for a college newspaper may be a high accomplishment in the journalism world, it doesn't really mean all that much in the tech world. Also, Microsoft and Google pay. They pay a lot.
ZachPruckowski 17y ago
The problem is that a company run by content creators (and news/opinion articles are content just like film/music is) is going to tend to see the distribution of that content as ancillary to its creation. They then see the IT/web department as being on the same plane as the delivery-boys in terms of importance.

johnohara 17y ago

Just bought a Powerball ticket. $114M woohoo! My odds of winning and her odds of finding someone are about the same.

ZachPruckowski 17y ago
You know what's gonna happen? Whichever boyfriend (or guy with a crush)[1] of a reporter there has the most tech knowledge is gonna get dragged into taking it over. I've been in that situation enough times (though usually with event stuff, not programming). That's basically the only shot they have at getting free skilled labor. [1] - Not that girlfriends can't be programmers, but college girls seem to be better at roping guys into doing work for them than the other way around.

iandbrown 17y ago

The collegian's web site runs on a windows server. lol'in at LAMP.

raquo 17y ago
Well, theoretically, maybe they would like to switch platforms if the "intern" could do it?
- sliverstorm 17y ago
  Just means they don't know enough about the acronym to say 'WAMP' instead. Theoretically, it could mean they want to switch. Theoretically.

brandnewlow 17y ago

Why the heck is it still so hard to make iPhone applications? You'd think some smart HNer would realize that every publication on the planet wants to have its own iPhone app. But few of them can afford to pay someone $10k to build one. I bet a lot of them could afford to pay $500 bucks though...

DavisShaver 17y ago
There are a bunch of companies (check out Scoble's YouTube feed for a few) that do this for a few hundred dollars.
loumf 17y ago
http://appmakr.com/ http://appmakr.com/

rohin 17y ago

Most college newspapers actually outsource the content management and hosting for their websites to a company called College Publisher (owned by Viacom). College Publisher takes 100% of the advertising revenue in exchange for hosting the site and providing a CMS for "free". It's a small but lucrative niche for Viacom. By not giving up 100% of its online advertising revenue, this paper is actually well ahead of its peers.

adelevie 17y ago
In this regard, you are absolutely right. The decision not to use College Publisher a few years back was very smart. However, the system is relatively old and tough to extend. These are solvable problems, assuming you have a capable web staff to handle it.
HannibalLecter 17y ago
>By not giving up 100% of its online advertising revenue, this paper is actually well ahead of its peers. Most colleges see very little in terms of revenue from advertising. They charge enough to cover expenses and wouldn't dream of changing their pricing to become profitable.
awa 17y ago
I doubt a college newspaper would rake in the moolah with online advertisement. I remember my college paper getting most of their paid ads from local restaurants and businesses They don't look very smart by not taking Viacom on their offer and then asking for a volunteer web developer to work on the site.

bfirsh 17y ago

At my student paper in the UK we are all unpaid volunteers. Is it any different in the States?

adelevie 17y ago
The Daily Collegian gives "scholarships" (stipends) to all editors and some senior reporters. These stipends don't come close to a wage, but it's something. Giving something to all editors and some reporters and then giving nothing to a web developer is insulting.
- scott_s 17y ago
  I don't understand why it's insulting. I assume that the editors and senior reporters have been on the paper for at least an academic year - otherwise, I don't see how they could become editors or senior reporters. So the little money they have goes to the people who've put significant amounts of time into the paper. The advertisement is for a new staff member. I assume new reporters don't get stipends either. So I don't see why it's insulting to treat this staff member the same as other staff members.
  - ZachPruckowski 17y ago
    Simultaneously, the advertisement is for the position in charge of their website and online presence (which is to say a decent portion of their operations), and is thus a fairly senior position. Stuff just gets more complicated when money's involved. It's one thing to ask for a hand with something you're not making money off of, and another thing to ask for free help on a project that's paying you.
    - scott_s 17y ago
      I think you and others are looking at it from a normal business transactions perspective. College papers aren't a business. I would be surprised if their advertisement revenue even covered operation costs. Students work on college papers for the same reason they attend class: to learn. Also, I think you're using "senior" in a different manner than I. I'm using it to mean seniority, or length of time spent working on the paper. You're using it to denote importance.

ZachPruckowski 17y ago

I don't see how this is different from the real world. I see lots of ads for "Unpaid Internships" that want extensive knowledge of the field and expect you to already have the skills and experience the internship is supposed to teach you.

imack 17y ago
My other favorite is looking for a technical person for whom they will "split the profits". Your local CraigsList "computer gigs" section will be filled with these. My favorite recent: "We are a couple of mompreneurs who are launching a business geared to moms. We are looking for someone, preferably a mom so you will already have knowledge of the target market, to help us with website design, online promotion etc. etc." http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/rds/cpg/1621222670.html http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/rds/cpg/1621222670.html
- philk 17y ago
  That's hilarious. Doubtless they'll be offering a smaller share of the profits as they're bringing their all important idea to the table. I think I'm going to try this stunt with every service I consume. "Yes, you see, you give me a haircut for free and then we split any resultant profits. 70-30, because the haircut was my idea".
- afterburner 17y ago
  Maybe web developers can sell themselves as "Marketing specialists". There seems to be a higher expectation of good pay with that among the non-tech savvy...
starev 17y ago
The difference is that you assume that the learning + industry experience + chance at a job later will make up for the not-being-paid. In this case, there is no potential for getting a foot in the door, no industry experience, and the 'learning' is questionable, particularly when you could use the same skills to make $25-50 an hour freelancing.

oconnore 17y ago

My University paper did something like this. They were looking for someone to do some website design and maintenance for them at $300 a semester, and I offered to help. Not because eleven dollars a week rewards the effort I would put in, but because I felt like helping my University fix their embarrassing web presence. In the end, despite the fact that I had worked with them before, and came recommended by the CS department, they demanded a full resume and a burned CD with examples of previous work before they would even talk to me! They ended up with an English major who "had experience with Dreamweaver", and clearly didn't mind jumping through hoops for negligible reward :P

adelevie 17y ago
It seems most senior staff for college papers (the journalism majors) think that they can very easily apply their expertise and authority of print journalism (most of what's being taught in journo programs) to the web. It doesn't work and creates insulting instances like your story.

el_dot 17y ago

Applicants need a working knowledge of ASP/ASP.net, MySQL, Movable Type, HTML/CSS and general web server experience. Knowledge of JavaScript, LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) servers, iPhone development knowledge, Adobe Flash/Flex is a plus. I guess this is what PG meant when he said: The pointy-haired boss has no idea how this software has to work, and can't tell one programming language from another, and yet he knows what language you should write it in.

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
ZachPruckowski 17y ago
In this case, it's apparent that they have a pre-existing system. Of course, why that system is in both ASP and PHP on both Linux and Windows, I have no clue. Given that they have MySQL on there twice, I'm going to guess it was a "write down every technical term that anyone knows" kinda thing.
pchickey 17y ago
Sure - the editor in chief, or whoever on staff wrote that description, doesn't really know ASP from LAMP. But they do know the current programmers use ASP.net and MT, and will need to continue using ASP.net and MT for the time being. In the past three years, the collegian website has added a lot of great features, and the design has improved considerably. It looks like they're still stuck on an old ASP backend, but the students responsible for the front page have been moving in the right direction. Unfortunately, its a pretty huge undertaking for unpaid (or close) full time students to replace a decent working site with a decade of archives with with a Rails app. In many ways, the Collegian is a representative good college daily - there are many in much deeper trouble for failing to grasp the basics of good journalism, not the basics of web 2.0. (Disclosure: Former Collegian photo staff)
- adelevie 17y ago
  The Collegian web site was cutting edge a few years ago. My predecessors really did a hell of a job cooking up a brand new system (built on MT). The previous system, from what I read, was archaic. Sadly not much has changed over the last couple years and without proper staff, nothing really will change.

Mankhool 17y ago

There are more than 600 college newspapers in the US. This means that an opportunity exists in these hyper-local markets to also report community news and, perhaps, create something that may "save" (I know that's the wrong word) the newspaper publishing industry.

marciovm123 17y ago
We're working on that. e-mail me if you'd like to talk =). -Marcio

marknutter 17y ago

And they allowed commenting... big mistake.

marciovm123 17y ago
what's wrong with commenting on news stories? Isn't that what we do here?

knieveltech 17y ago

Based on this posting it's obvious they need to come to grips with a few things. 1. unpaid internships are not a sought after opportunity for programmers. If a coder wants to build work experience it's a trivial exercise to track down an Open Source project to contribute to. Benefits include working with some of the best developers in the world on projects that are used around the world. By way of comparison what can you offer? 2. iPhone app developers are in demand. So much so it's easy to find someone willing to pay you to learn how to write one. 3. You've listed .NET and LAMP, this is a clear indication your server space is an unsupportable trainwreck and your IS/IT services are operating with no clear goals in mind or are being interefered with by management. Going forward they should seriously consider picking a single technology stack for your web services, it'll cut the support workload in half and make finding talent a lot simpler. Anyone versed in both LAMP and .NET is out getting paid $80k+ a year with full benefits. Journalism majors might still be jumping at the chance for an unpaid internship but developers definitely are not. Tell the university to cough up a budget for the position or (much better) start making journalism students take web design and development classes. After three years building websites for the 3rd largest newspaper company in the US I can tell you that there's nothing quite as useless as a journalist who doesn't understand the web.

CitizenKane 17y ago

I used to be the online manager at my college newspaper (http://mndaily.com http://mndaily.com). Working in the newspaper publishing environment is challenging for programmers. For instance, while online advertising made up a sizeable portion of the paper's revenue many of the salepeople at the paper had no idea where the ad spots were on the site or even what a CPM is. Also challenging was working with different departments that had different workflows. We had to support the editorial process, the sales process, the hiring process, etc. But wanting to get programmers for nothing is crazy. The programmers at the Daily were among the highest paid employees (only editor-in-chief, controller, and president were paid more than the online staff I believe) there and it would still takes months to fill a position with someone who had any competence (knew HTML and could write something more than Hello World in PHP). While I know times are tough this is pretty disgraceful. College newspapers offer a good opportunity to get training in programming and allow prospective coders to start working with teams and real projects. But doing it for no pay really makes it a non-option.

gxs 17y ago

I'm surprised they didn't want a minimum 10 years experience in iphone app dev experience.

joelhaus 17y ago

Not enough vision here... its a potentially great way to get free press and ad space for your project while learning a bit about all the newspapers that will be desparate for any programmer with knowledge of a dying industry can be saved.