As always in recent history at California State University, Northridge, students are working hard to succeed in any classes they were lucky enough to secure at the start of the semester. So how many busy students does it take to crank out an issue of the Daily Sundial every day between Monday and Thursday without fail?

The newspaper staff comprises a whole lot of students with different educational and career goals in mind, but most of them are interested in some form of journalism major. Every newspaper manages it staff differently, but this is the staff behind every issue and online edition of the CSUN Daily Sundial:

• Editor in chief
• Executive editor
• Page and copy editors
• Assistant page editors
• Multimedia editor
• Online editor
• Social media editor
• Photo editor
• Staff reporters
• Staff photographers
• Contributing reporters/photographers
• Web developer
• Publisher
• General manager
• Business coordinator

As staff members of any daily newspaper would exhaustedly confirm, the cycle of finding and reporting the news is a continual one that allows no breaks. It is extremely important, therefore, to have a “locked tight” process—called copy flow—for producing a newspaper in order to accomplish the task as efficiently and error free as possible.

In the same way staff varies between newspapers, so does copy flow. The Sundial copy flow follows these steps:

1. Stories and photo assignments are assigned. All reporters and photojournalists who work for the Daily Sundial are handed assignments in their morning meetings. Story ideas come from all over, including relevant sources, journalists on staff, public relations and marketing people, and professors and students on campus. When a special of breaking news story comes up, writers and photographers are contacted and sent out, depending on availability. Often times, these “last minute” journalists are the editors in the newsroom, or any journalism students working in the newsroom at the time.
     
2.  Editors begin designing their pages around ad lines. Newspapers are fueled entirely on advertising dollars, so the layout of the paper—how many pages, which (if any) are in color—is based around however many advertisers have purchased space. Once the editors know how big their issue will be, they can begin designing their pages with guideline sheets called ad lines, which show exactly where ads will be placed on their pages. With this “set aside” space in mind, editors begin determining which stories will run based on space and how big stories and headlines will be, and which stories, if any, will run with photos.

3. The pages begin to fill out with content. Once the stories are sent to the page editors, the editors begin to work with what they actually have versus what they assumed they would receive. Sometimes this means cutting a story to make it fit, or making a photo bigger to make up for a shorter-than-intended story. The photo editor preps all photos for pages, cropping and formatting them depending on whether they will run in color, black and white, or online.
   
   
   
4. All the little details are worked out. Headlines, subheads (the summary text right below a headline before the story starts) and photo subtitles are all written based on the allotted space and the content of the story. Headlines can take especially long because the editors—often a few editors standing and thinking around the same computer screen—need to find a way to sum up the meaning and relevance of a story in very few words that must fit in a specific space. Sometimes this space is only two lines with six to eight letters per line.
   
   
   
5. Final pages are copyedited. When a page is finished, it is printed out and reviewed by some of the page editors for basic design and content oversight. Then, the page is given to the editor in chief for a closer look. Lastly, the page is given to a copy editor who is responsible for proofreading and making sure content meets the newspaper’s designated style (usually AP Style, with variations specific to each newspaper). Michelle Verne, a copy editor for the Daily Sundial, finds her biggest challenge is assisting struggling writers. “There’s certain writers who you look forward to editing and certain writers who you don’t. Sometimes you feel as if you need to change the whole story.”
   
   
   
   
   
6. Pages are sent to the printer. Once the final pages have been copy edited and all final changes have been made, pages are sent to the printer (exported) for printing off-site. The papers are delivered very early in the morning to the campus and distributed across the campus and in all the Daily Sundial newspaper stands.

 

Check out the online edition of the Sundial or subscribe to the Twitter feed for up-to-date information on the CSUN campus.

It seems like everyone had a much more enjoyable weekend than I did!

Kristine Malicse stopped during her Little Tokyo visit to listen to a local musician who play there every weekend. Monica Williams, who works at Shepherd of the Hills, helped with music and choreography for kids. Journalism major Kristin Hugo found a rock-climbing area she referred to as "rock city."

 

 

Who owns the fruit grown on trees in public places? This grey-area question was posed artistically by the creators of the art exhibit and project titled “Fallen Fruit,” which was displayed for viewing by anyone hanging around Santa Monica’s 18^th Street Art Complex between July 12 and Sept. 13, 2008.

By focusing on the ownership rights of fruit grown in public places, the project creators sought to produce a collaborative, artistic and educational work. Presented through various forms of media, Fallen Fruit—creative, innovative, and bizarre as it is—attempts to illustrate how fruit grown in the public realm relates to the public around it and who actually owns the fruit, a topic creator David Burns says is “ill-defined.”

“We used that thesis, that concept to look back at the history of America and some of the history of the world and think about the future and our relationship to how we as a public, and as individuals, relate to the food we eat,” Burns said.

The creators of Fallen Fruit openly welcome and encourage public collaboration on their project. In addition to various other outreach events, including nocturnal fruit forages, protests and jam-making events called Fruit Jams, the project creators invite public input by allowing citizens to expand the fruit map with fruit locations around their own homes and neighborhoods.

“We look at a number of things,” explained co-creator Matias Viegener. “We look at city, we look at urban space, we look at how people interact with each other and the space of the city, and in particular the plants and the nature in the city. We kind of look at the whole world through the lens of fruit.”

More info on the Fallen Fruit project can be found at http://www.fallenfruit.org/.

 

 

<br /><small>View 18th Street Arts Complex in Santa Monica, CA in a larger map</small>

How to Jump Over a Trash Can

A Critical Survival Skill

 

 

Fencehopper and I worked on this together. 
 
 Want to impress your friends, or just be able to get away from the cops faster? Use this tutorial to learn how to jump over an obstacle, specifically a garbage can. 

What you’ll need:

A Garbage Can
Energy
An enthused onlooker
Reliable footwear

Steps

1. Stretch. This is somewhat optional.
2. Get your friend to hold your bag.
3. Balance your Tchai. What’s Tchai? It doesn’t matter, just tell yourself you’re balanced.
4. Start at a reasonable distance. To get enough speed, I suggest starting at least 20 feet away on even ground.
5. Start running. Use natural but long strides.
6. Launch.
7. Land. Don’t forget this one.
8. Prepare for jerks to say, “I would have laughed so hard if you tripped.” This happens pretty much every time.

Congratulations, you are now a BAMF. 

Budget cuts that hit the Los Angeles Public Library system in late July have forced the libraries to remain closed Mondays in addition to Sundays, dropping the entire system to a five-day-a-week schedule and resulting in more than 300 layoffs, according to an article by the Los Angeles Times.

 

The Times reported the cuts, which resulted a loss of 328 full-time positions, were approved as part of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s proposed budget cuts.

 

According to the minutes of a Board of Library Commissioners meeting, the new operating budget for the system is $131,732,000. The slashing of $22 million amounted to a nearly 15 percent reduction.

 

“It will definitely impact the service, because it will reduce the accessibility of the library's resources,” library spokesman Peter Persic said to the Times.

 

In a Daily Breeze article, Sara Ring, a Los Feliz freelance writer and patron of her local library, offered a more direct statement regarding the budget cuts.

 

“L.A. is known as a city of airheads,” Feliz said. “Then we go and cut the library budget. It doesn't send a great message to the rest of the country.”

 

In the same article, Elyse Barrere, a librarian in Atwater Village who used to work at the Vernon branch of the LAPL system, expressed her fear for hundreds of black and Latino children who would be losing a safe, quiet, after-school homework haven.

“I just keep thinking about those kids,” Barrere said. “The library was a neutral territory where the gangs didn't really come in. It makes me worry about them. It could be a very bad situation.”

 

The Times article also states that despite some fear further cuts could ultimately lead to a total demise of the local library system, Miguel Santana, the Los Angeles administrative officer and top budget official at City Hall, said that would be impossible due to legal requirements that enforce a minimum level of funding for libraries.

 

A Library Journal article reported that seven-day library service was already reduced to six days in April.

 

The Los Angeles Public Library system—which comprises a Central Library, 8 regional branches and 64 community branches—received 17,3000,000 library visits and checked out a total of 18,800,000 items, according to the system’s fact sheet for fiscal year 2008-09.

Matador Mall in 108-Degree Weather

(Newspaper) A by-the-handful snack that appeals in mystery

Mankind seems drawn to foods and snacks whose plethora of clashing flavors cannot be identified and whose visible contents don't seem to include themselves in the list of detectable tastes. It took more than one tasting of Haldiram's Kashmiri Mixture to develop any sort of solid opinion on the spicy, ambiguous snack, and even still each mouthful seems to offer a whole new mysterious, unsettling experience, after which I am unsure whether I am left satisfied, disgusted, or just neutrally numb. What I do know is that I am here, eating another handful, mindlessly chewing and reading the news on the Internet.

The enigma of Haldiram's mystery bag can only be likened to the typical Asian trail mix found on every liquor store shelf. You know the one: That bag comprised primarily of ingredients I cannot identify, save for the peas (and the peas don't taste like peas—and everything else doesn't taste like anything except whatever puzzling sweet-spicy flavor Asian trail mix resembles). The two share no similarity in taste but are mutually abundant in the perplexing appeal that keeps up reaching for one more handful.

The contents of Haldiram's Kashmiri Mixture include ingredients the average snack seeker may never have eaten (or heard of)—namely mung beans and gram flour strands—but the bag also offers a bounty of familiar ingredients not present in the typically movie-watching crunchfest. These components, certainly the most (if not the only) identifiable flavors of the batch, include black pepper, nutmeg, mango powder and black salt (the bag also lists "other spices," but whose counting?). Cashews and "potato strands" are present, but perhaps only formally, as you probably won't be able to identify the taste of a cashew even if you hand-picked one from the mix and deliberately placed it, alone, in your mouth.

Haldiram's Kashmiri Mixture doesn't fail to deliver a motley crew of foods and spices whose mystery might steer some away while the rest of us keep eating it by the handful, guessing.

 

(Yelp) Strange, spicy trail mix

Super spicy and weird tasting. If you like curry and mindlessly reaching for handfuls of snack from a bowl while you watch TV, you might enjoy this. I'd prefer peanuts, pretzels, candy, Cheez-Its or even that spicy-sweet Asian trail mix stuff.

I've always felt like my best thoughts stay hidden away in my mind while my most basic gibberish finds its way out to other people's ears. The words I say generally fail to properly illustrate the thoughts they should represent. This barrier is usually overcome when I am writing; I won't go as far as to say I "love to write," like many who keep a journal or post blogs might be able to claim. However, when it's time to write, I find myself to be wonderfully articulate (as long as my thoughts can be channeled through a keyboard or pen).

Early in my college career, I decided to apply this knowledge to my work with the school newspaper. My stories were often praised by my professors, which helped boost my confidence (my weak trait, by the way). After a semester in journalism, I knew I wanted to apply my keen knowledge of writing and grammar to the task of copyediting. This way, I could perfect other people's work without dealing with the stresses and (in my opinion) the often boring nature of writing. Believe it or not, I greatly enjoy copyediting. I don't think anybody has understood why that is.

In my time at Pierce College, I attended three Journalism Association of Community Colleges conventions. Competing with student journalists from all around California, I took home at least one first place from each convention, setting many records for my campus. In my first semester as a writer, I took home first place for news writing. When I served as a copy editor, I was entered into the news writing and copyediting competitions; I took first place in both of them. When I served as editor in chief, I was again entered in copyediting—and again, I took home the gold.

I have no doubts about my ability to tell a story, but I greatly prefer and enjoy cleaning up everyone else's work. I feel many people are better storytellers than I am, but some of the best storytellers I've ever met can't spell to save their lives. Regardless of any given writer's grammatical proficiency, I am generally comfortable assuming I can probably find and correct errors in their work. There's no superiority complex here; proofreading has been a blessing and a curse my entire life (living in Los Angeles is a rough place for a grammar freak).

As bland as it may sound, I am passionate about copyediting because it is a fantastic learning experience; when my job calls for poring over each word of dozens of stories a week, I learn and absorb everything each of these stories has to offer. As a first-semester CSUN student, I'm already learning so much about my campus just by copyediting the Daily Sundial. One day I hope to be editing for a magazine like TIME Magazine or National Geographic, so that I can benefit from the knowledge and wisdom of writers far more experienced in writing—and life—than I am.