UAlbany Students Get Behind The Scenes Look At A Newsroom

Hundreds of Journalism students gathered in the PAC’s Recital Hall last Wednesday afternoon for a showing of Aaron Matthew’s “The Paper.” “The Paper” is a documentary about The Daily Collegian, Penn State University’s newspaper during the 2004-2005 school year. Matthew’s documentary gives the audience insight into what it is like to work in a college newsroom.
“The Paper” follows the lives of student journalists Laura Baker, Kayur Patel, Bridget Smith, Jenny Vrentas, and James Young. The group faces many problems during this year, including a few controversies and a lack of circulation. The Daily Collegian previously had a circulation of around 20,000 copies, but only had a circulation between 14,000 and 15,000 at the time the documentary was filmed. At the beginning of “The Paper,” the journalists struggled to raise interest and circulation of The Daily Collegian.
Rookie journalist Kayur Patel faced a lot of difficulty with his first beat. He had a hard time meeting deadlines, and balancing his newspaper responsibilities with his schoolwork. Student journalist Jenny Ventras faced a lot of discrimination for being a female in sports journalism. She received limited access to the athletes from the coaches, making it hard to cover the stories that she wanted. Eventually, she went around the coaches to interview the players, and finally got the story she wanted. Ventras was reprimanded for her actions, but that did not stop her from covering her beat.
The Daily Collegian faced a lot of criticism from its peers. One of its ongoing complaints was the lack of black representation in The Daily Collegian. Black students were expressing the invisibility they felt at Penn State University on a daily basis. Members of the Black Caucus met with editor James Young numerous times to discuss the limited coverage of issues that affected black students. The Black Caucus held a press conference on campus to address this issue, and became highly upset when The Daily Collegian identified it as a rally.
Another issue that caused major controversy was a letter to the editor that The Daily Collegian decided to publish. The newspaper wrote a front page article that featured two homosexual couples kissing. One displeased student wrote a letter calling homosexuals as queer, and not considered real people. Despite the disagreements of some of the editors, the letter was published in the newspaper. The Penn State student community was outraged, and The Daily Collegian became swamped with letters of disgust. Surprisingly, this caused a sudden jump in circulation, which is what The Daily Collegian aimed to do. By the end of the movie, the editors learned what sells newspapers.
After the showing of the movie, there was a question and answer session with filmmaker Aaron Matthews. Students had the opportunity to ask Matthews various questions to learn more about his film making process. “The Paper” is not Matthew’s first documentary, he has done a few in the past about diverse subjects. Matthews became interested in media columns after September 11th, leading to his interest in The Daily Collegian. When asked why he chose Penn State, his answer was simple: “I live there.” Matthew’s wife works at the university, and it was close enough that he could walk there. The filmmaking process is complicated, and Matthews put in a great deal of time and effort into making “The Paper.” ITBS.org and the Sundance Institute gave him $235,000 to make the documentary. Matthews was also paid a $100,000 salary over a two and a half year period. There is no profit made from documentaries. Matthews recorded about 350 hours of footage, 75 percent of which taken Matthews took by himself. He then spent the next four months reviewing it. The editing process was difficult, since it was impossible to use all of the footage he recorded. When asked if he questioned showing certain material, Matthews claimed that everything he thought was important was in the film. He also stated that one of the students asked that a tragic personal story be left out of the documentary. Matthews ‘presence in the newsroom was not hindering to the students, but hindering to his typical filmmaking process. Matthews does not like taking the fly-on-the-wall approach. Instead he would rather talk and interact with his subjects. Although this was a long and intricate process, Matthews enjoyed the time he spent at The Daily Collegian. “Overall, I was amazed with the activity and business of the newsroom,” stated Matthews.