It goes without saying that I have an opinion. It hit news stands and front porches today. Hopefully the first of many professional columns printed. In a way it’s a milestone for me. Yes, I’ve had stints as a columnist for the Collegian and I’ve been published in large papers for news and even feature writing but never for editorial. Let me know what you think. I welcome feedback. The good, the bad and the indifferent. I won’t be able to improve without it.
Archives For November 30, 1999
It finally happened. Today I accepted a position with the Hutchinson News. Next Tuesday marks the starting of my next chapter: Tim Schrag the copy editor/page designer. Growing up I never thought this would be my first professional job. When I took editing and design my sophomore year at K-State I didn’t think I would end up in this area of journalism either. (That was one of the best classes I had in the Miller School because I had to work for the “B” I ended up with. It also taught me about the importance of good copy editors and design) Up until a few days ago I really thought the first gig I’d get out of college was going to be some type of entry-level reporting job.
Taking all of this into consideration I’m really looking forward to these next few weeks. Some of my closest friends come from copy editing/page design backgrounds (All of them could take me to school if we had a competition), I come from a writing and editorial supervision background, but there are few things I do clearly understand from this:
1) I’m glad I have these people in my life because they challenge me to do better.
2) It’s good to have friends to bounce ideas off.
3) None of us ever stop learning and this will be a good way to improve my craft.
I always seem to manage mixing my Collegian duties with my journalism classes. In today’s issue of the Collegian we have a Holiday Gift Guide. In that guide a wrote a column about decorating for the holidays. I think it fits in nicely with the project my group is working on so I thought we would include it. If you haven’t had a chance to take a look at it, here it is:
College holiday decorations can be more than traditional
By: Tim Schrag
College students have a unique opportunity to decorate for the holidays. It’s a time where domestic traditions can be put aside and decorations that exude school pride, alcoholism or campy irreverence can take center stage.
Over the course of my four years at K-State I have seem some pretty interesting decorations ranging from a Christmas tree adorned with purple Bud Light fan cans, to unique interpretations of nativity scenes. I remember decorating my house as freshman; we put decorations up before Thanksgiving and they stayed up until we got back from break. It was really fun bonding experience and we made a big event out of it.
Here in the newsroom, the Collegian staff has decorated for the holidays with a Festivus pole. None of us actually celebrate Festivus, but it seemed like an appropriate way to celebrate the holiday season without a pointless debate on religion. We took our own spin on it and printed off our own ornaments and taped them to the pole. It was a really great staff bonding moment. I proudly displayed my EcoKat ornament at the top of the pole, where I feel she belongs.
I asked my friends for some suggestions on what they do to decorate for the holidays on Facebook, and here are some of the more interesting tips and suggestions they came up with:
“I think smells are equally important to decor at Christmas time. Candles or oils with holiday scents are great for small dorms or apartments.”
“Since many of us can’t put lights up outside, just put a strand around your window(s) inside. Your neighbors will still be able to see your Christmas spirit. Plus, if you get purple, you can leave them up long after the holidays.”
“Paper chains to count down to the end of finals week are fun, too.”
In my opinion, there are many ways to go about decorating, and the best ones seem to work because the decorators really take ownership and make it their own. I have a Charlie Brown Christmas tree with a single red bulb and a Powercat in my room. Whatever you do this year to celebrate just remember to have fun with it.
Tim Schrag is a senior in journalism and digital media. Please send comments to edge@spub.ksu.edu.
Based on what the some of the other groups were doing for MC 580 my group has decided to create our own website for our final project cover the holidays in Manhattan, Kan. Check it out if you have an extra five minutes to kill.
Here's a glimpse of the site. Check it out if you get a chance.
“Oh the weather outside is frightful,”… but so is dead week. That being said we seem to be making some progress completing our final project. Here is the column I wrote for Tuesday’s issue of the Kansas State Collegian it’s about annoyances of the term Happy Holidays.
Debate on seasonal saying is pointless, actual actions are what matters
By: Tim Schrag
I’m just barely old enough to remember a time when the standard greeting during this time of year was “Merry Christmas.” People would place Christmas decorations, displays and trees up in their homes, stores and offices. “Happy Holidays” was nothing more than a song most commonly sung by Bing Crosby.
At some point in my childhood the trend changed and people began to replace the greeting “Merry Christmas” with “Happy holidays.” At the same time, the term “Christmas” was simply replaced with “holiday.” “Holiday” trees, lights and displays started popping up everywhere. Basically the only difference was the name; it was clear that these festive decorations were for Christmas.
In changing the name, we are mocking the less popular holidays and bastardizing Christmas. Occasionally there might have been a Star of David, but outside of that there was really no mention of other winter holidays. I guess the point is that there are people who don’t celebrate Christmas and those in charge didn’t want to offend them. Really though, what’s the point? Using the generic term “holiday” to seem more inclusive without actually including these other holidays seems more offensive, in my mind.
Being inclusive is easier said than done, especially in areas where there is a lack of diversity. My hometown hosts an annual lighted Christmas parade. I don’t see that ever changing, not because they are insensitive to others in the community, but because there really isn’t a need. Almost everyone in my hometown celebrates Christmas. Most of my peers come from middle-class, white, Christian families, many of whom may have only been exposed to other holidays through television specials on shows like “Rugrats.” I was fortunate enough to have gone to a grade school where the teachers felt it was important to educate us about other winter holidays like the Chinese New Year, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Yule and the winter solstice. Then again, I went to a Catholic grade school.
“It’s really hard because it depends on everyone’s personal view point,” said Candice Hironaka, senior associate director of the School of Leadership Studies. “It’s hard when your cultural frame of reference is steeped around one specific holiday. It’s just a matter of continuing to educate ourselves about what the other holidays are that are happening during this season of really good wishes.”
Hironaka says while she does celebrate Christmas, when she is greeting people around the office or in class she prefers the term “seasons greetings” because it is more generic and focuses more on well-wishing.
I’m totally on board with this idea. Still, I say “Merry Christmas” more often than not. I think it’s a good failsafe. In my opinion, “Happy holidays” is an empty statement. What most people are really saying is “Merry Christmas, but I don’t want to offend anyone so I’m saying this instead, even though I mean Merry Christmas.” I have run across very few people who say “Happy Holidays” and genuinely mean it.
Why not cut out the middle man and say “Merry Christmas” if that’s what the statement is meant to convey? “Season’s greetings” also works well, because it’s a greeting that could really be used at any time of the year.
Ultimately this season is a time for well-wishing and joy, and I sincerely hope people have an amazing December and January despite what they celebrate. The purple nation is a diverse crowd, and we should celebrate it, but not insincerely. Good luck with finals everyone, and when you greet each other, just say what you mean. It comes off less condescending.
Tim Schrag is a senior in journalism and digital media. Please send all comments to opinion@spub.ksu.edu.
Wow. I cannot believe it’s already week 5 of the fall 2011 semester at K-State. I also cannot believe I’m stuck in another boring lecture here in Burt Hall. The football team is 2-0 and has a huge game coming up this weekend against the University of Miami. I also happen to be tied for second place in the Collegian’s weekly pick ‘um. Talk around the newsroom has been about the collapse of the Big 12 and EMAW for the last 5-6 days. I’m closer and closer to graduation. The newspaper is getting more and more streamlined and the design just gets better and better. You can see a great example of that here on the EMAW front page of Monday’s Collegian:KSU-9-19-11 pg01 I’m very close to finishing my first project for MC 580. (There will be more to come with that as soon as I finish the sound slide.) I can’t help but wonder what happens next…
I can barely plan past next week let alone December or God forbid May. There is one thing I do know: Biochemistry in society has to be the most interesting/boring class I have ever taken at K-State. I suppose I should work on that.
I am fully aware that perfection is impossible to obtain. Imperfection is what humbles us and helps us grow. Sometimes I feel like I have more humbling moments than others. Today alone I’ve dealt with wisecracking critics of the Collegian. Quite frankly I welcome corrections, complaints and concerns. Good, bad or indifferent I want to make the Collegian better, but I absolutely hate when people call in to say things like “The Collegian sucks,” without providing a reason why. I think it’s childish and downright mean-spirited. Sometimes it seems that people forget that college students are putting together this college paper. Most of us are still learning the tricks of the trade.
Luckily there seems to still be a great deal of support for the Collegian. To those that support the Collegian, thank you very much. It makes what we are doing that much more worth it.
Last night I sent the last page of the Collegian’s 9/11 Commemorative edition at 1 a.m. thinking this is an awesome issue. What ended up happening was less than awesome. The stories were great, the design, magnificent, the problem: we made some headline and info graphic errors on the pages 1 and two. It’s a sad day, but life goes on. I try to look at it in a glass half-full sort of way by brushing it off and working on tomorrow’s paper.
I am currently sitting in my Biochemistry in Society lecture, bored out of my mind, reflecting on what I’ve learned three weeks into the fall 2011 semester. For some reason this student presentation on dieting just isn’t holding my interest. Go figure. Things seem much different than they were only two weeks ago. For instance when I started school classes were the last thing on my mind… in some ways they still are. However, this week I have been able to sit through an entire class without thinking about Kedzie Hall or even the Collegian. Week one brought me almost an entirely new staff with a huge learning curve, but the content of the paper has been fairly solid, we’re reporting on things ranging from the weather, to teacher’s salaries, to the Big 12 fiasco.
I’ve really been impressed with how fast my editors have taken responsibility for their duties and taking ownership of their parts of the paper. Things were touch and go for a while, but things are finally starting for really click and come together. We’ve consistently beat deadline for the last two weeks. They all bring such interesting perspectives to the Collegian. I do wish they’d be a little bit more vocal at daily meetings, but I think that will come with time.
On Sunday the editorial board went out to get to know each other a little bit better. What a fun group of people. It was really cool to hang out with them in a non-work situation and not talk about the paper.
More importantly more and more people seem to be coming into the newsroom interested in writing for the paper. I owe a big thank you to the Professors in the A. Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications who have either made writing for the Collegian a class requirement or are offering extra credit for doing so.
I really enjoy working with the new writers and talking to underclassmen interested in writing for the paper. Their energy, in many cases nervous, reminds me of my freshman year.
This week the first project for the my media convergence class was assigned. I’m supposed to make a sound slide and a podcast. (I’ve written news articles, feature stories, made television packages and stand-ups, but for some reason I have never dealt with strictly audio.) The professor gave us the project yesterday and basically pushed us off the deep end and said go make a podcast. I guess it’s time to give it the old college try.
Tim Schrag 