A Hoot-load of Responsibility

Forwarding the article about Rudnick to The Hoot brought a smile to my face because after 4.5 years, The Hoot is still around. This means every single graduating year started school when The Hoot already existed. To them, it’s as if it’s been there all along.

That said, today was the first time I told someone what my biggest fear was when Danny and I (and to some extent Leslie) founded The Hoot.

My biggest fear was not the possibility that the our effort would fail, but rather that it would succeed and in the process suck someone in completely that it ruins or hurts their college experience. The goal, at least for me, was not only to publish a newspaper that worked differently from the Justice but one that can be done by full time students without endangering their friendships and academics. I did not want it to completely take over someone’s life to the point that they can’t spend any time with their friends or find time to go to all the college events they want to go to or do their homework. I wanted there to be an alternative to the Justice that allowed editors lives; a paper that didn’t kill three or four days during the week trying to put the paper out (though the first few months The Hoot certainly did that).

The best editor-in-chief that I worked under at the Justice sent an email to her friends after her term was over basically reintroducing herself to them. My biggest fear was that I would be responsible (through the founding of The Hoot) for some future student having to do the same or to have the newspaper so completely take over their lives that they have no friends outside the paper.

When my successor at The Hoot told me she was interested in taking some courses or joining some program but was afraid The Hoot would get in the way, I told her that under no circumstances should she let The Hoot interfere with her college plans. If it comes down to you doing what you want or laboring to keep the newspaper going please, please chose your own happiness. College newspapers come and go, you only get to go to college once.

I don’t mind being responsible for my own choices, my own wrecks, my own life. However, I would hate to be responsible for others missing out on college and friends in order to run a newspaper that was founded (at least in part) as an alternative to that.

So to any current Hoot editors, if you ever stumble upon this post please keep it in mind. That said, if you enjoy editing The Hoot, please don’t let this post change your mind.

You may also be interested in a few other articles written over the years on the purpose of The Hoot: this editorial, this column, this column, this column, this column and this column. It’s quite a few articles, but all from different former contributors or editors and are very heartwarming (at least for me) to read.

Having stumbled upon them in the process of writing this post, I do want to say Thank You to their writers, for understanding what The Hoot was supposed to be about and for making the paper what it is today.

Someone saw this coming…

A friend passed a long an article about a fellow Brandeis alum Bryan Rudnick who is following in the steps of Jack Abramoff. I didn’t know Rudnick, but from what I heard as a cub reporter/editor at the Justice and later The Hoot people should not be surprised he was involved in something like that.

As a student, he (or more accurately the soon to be defunct publication he edited Freedom Magazine) was responsible bringing Charlton Heston to campus. From what I was told, this was a major disaster for the campus. Over 1000 students protested. Hundreds of people having no relation to the University flooded the campus and as a result many students were not allowed in to see his speech. Ridiculous security procedures had to be enacted to keep students safe and Rudnick, in my opinion, turned this into a political launch pad to ingratiate himself with right wing power brokers.

The security procedures and other “hurdles”–such as booking the right room–were turned by Rudnick as an us vs. the liberal college establishment battle which many eager right winger ate up. This article is one of many examples of the spin Rudnick was putting on this. Then again, it seems from what I read Rudnick was great at baiting people with outrageous comments and the playing the victim and getting PR for it. I’m not saying I agree with the Student Senate over reaction in that or any other case involving Rudnick, but I am saying he’s very experienced in making ourageous comments and the playing the victim (though luckily in the PA case, he can’t play the victim).

From what I can tell, Freedom Magazine, which after being defunded received off campus funding from right wing groups, eventually was forced to shut down for printing a student’s phone number and encouraging harassment of that student (i can’t verify this at the moment but recall vaguely hearing a story about it from a source who will go unnamed).

I forwarded the article to The Hoot with a brief back story. Maybe they can do some digging and write an interesting story.

Edit: A few more interesting tidbits about Rudnick. He worked for the Katherine Harris campaign in Florida. Apparently his experience may have been exagerated. Also this is a ruling against him and Freedom Magazine by the Brandeis Student Union Judiciary.