Various Editorial Remarks
To the Editor:
My name is Alan J. Kleipass; I am the president of the Performing Arts Society (Kingsborough’s theatre club), and I’m writing to you concerning Scepter’s coverage, or lack thereof, of our recent production of David Ives’ “All in the Timing” in the MAC Playhouse.
For the second time this year, I find myself frustrated with the lack of coverage in Scepter of a student production. Earlier this year, in May, Scepter failed to publish an article on the Ten-minute Play Festival, which was the work product of the college‘s directing course. This despite the fact that both Abe Ginsberg and Sarah Barninka took photos of the show, and Aline Bernstein attended the final night to review it.
“All in the Timing” is the opening number in an ambitious season for the Performing Arts Society and the Communications and Performing Arts Department that will include the “Vagina Monologues” in February and “Little Shop of Horrors” in May - followed closely by the Spring ‘08 directing class’ work product play festival.
I can appreciate the difficulties of publishing a college newspaper: Scepter was my first home on campus, before I changed majors and became entrenched in the theatre program. Nevertheless, my frustration remains. Your excellent coverage earlier this semester of “Peter Pan” - a production that had no connection to either my club or the department - left me hopeful of the coverage our productions would be receiving from Scepter this season. Is this false hope of my part? Was the article on “All in the Timing” a victim of a missed deadline, or are our student productions simply not a newsworthy item for the college’s student newspaper?
I look forward to your response.
Respectfully,
Alan J. Kleipass
President, Performing Arts Society
From the Editor:
Alan,
Thank you.
I was elated the first time I laid my eyes on your letter, as it proved to me that there are students out there that care about a major part of democracy. A free press is crucial to keeping the public informed about their surrounding community’s happenings, and an informed public is essential to democracy. When I first took my post as editor of the Scepter, I was haunted by the idea that Viacom and Rupert Murdoch had in fact won the minds of the youth, and turned them off entirely to caring about our society. But when I began to read your letter the first time I began to laugh in rejoicing, because I felt like I had reached out and connected with that one student who could prove to me that my fear was unjustified.
Then the truth began to settle and I focused on the message in your letter. Since then I’ve read it again and again, trying to think of how to respond appropriately. From time to time I would sit down at my desk, startled to find another letter from a student, only to realize it is another copy of your letter that was sent to various Kingsborough administration heads that eventually trickled back to the Scepter office.
Even as I write this response now, I am torn between writing some self-righteous raging rant and a woefully sorrowful apology. As you suggest in your letter, the article covering “All in the Timing” was in fact a victim of a missed deadline, a common cause here at the Scepter.
We at the Scepter had every intention of covering the Kingsborough season opener, but unfortunately Life caught up with its writer, as it often has with many of Scepter’s prospective writers. As the president of the Performing Arts Society, you too are likely plagued with the number of difficulties and set-backs that come along with being a performer, and while you say you can appreciate how difficult it is to put a school newspaper together, I have never seen you walking off of campus at 11 P.M., on a Saturday night, because you had to work so late. Maybe the performing arts captures more imaginations than journalism, and thus benefits from the sheer number of students enrolled in performing arts courses, which I imagine make room for hands-on time for Kingsborough performing arts productions.
On the other hand, as much as Kingsborough’s journalism professors try to get their students to contribute to the school paper, they can not convince them to stay and continue writing. While the beginning of every semester brings an influx of interested writers, soon they begin to ignore phone calls and e-mails, and eventually fall off the face of the earth entirely. EVERY single extra-curricular activity that Kingsborough’s student body contributes to is newsworthy. The problem lies in the fact that there are not enough students to write about them.
We here at the Scepter are trying to change that. Beginning the week of February’s Club Fest, the Scepter will implement a system of rewards to contributing and staff writers in hopes of perking the interest of the new students that will be calling Kingsborough home during the Spring semester.
While it will still be the editors’ decision which articles have made the cut to be fit to print, we hope to find more than a couple of diamonds in the rough. For the other frustrated heads of Kingsborough’s student clubs and organizations: you have people, send them to us. If you have an event that you think we need to know about, my managing editors and I can be found in M-230, down the hallway to the right at the top of the stairs across from Kingsbrew.
Our email address is Scepter@kingsborough.edu. Our telephone number is 718-368-5603.
Thank you again Alan for proving to me there are those out there that care.
In solidarity,
Alejandro Pena
Editor-In-Chief
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