While other media outlets falter, the Mac Weekly is still going strong.
BY | ANDY STEINER '90
IT CAN BE IRREVERENT or sincere, rebellious
or mild. Depending on who occupies the editor’s
chair, the Mac Weekly, Macalester’s nearly
100-year-old student-run newspaper, takes
on a different personality every semester.
While that shifting editorial profile is part
of what gives the spunky little paper its charm,
for many members of the campus community
the Mac Weekly represents tradition and a
quirky stability. No matter what else happens
on campus—or in the outside world—there
will always be a stack of papers in the campus
center each Friday.
Nevertheless, recent economic events
could cause anyone to wonder whether the
Weekly can continue indefinitely in its current
form. Times in the journalism business
are tough. Daily newspapers are in down-size
mode, cutting back on print editions and
seeking refuge on the Web. Some prominent
student newspapers are also feeling the heat
and dropping editions, including those at
the University of Minnesota, the University
of California–Berkeley, and the University of
Maryland. It would be easy to assume that
student newspapers are on their way out.
Happily, fans of the Mac Weekly can relax.
The news is markedly different at Macalester
and many other liberal arts colleges than it
is for the newspaper business in general. According
to a recent article in the Chronicle of
Higher Education, the financial state of student
publications at many schools across the country
remains fundamentally sound. Advertising
dollars are stable, and readership is high.
Explaining why papers like the Weekly can
survive while other publications struggle is
easy, says Howard Sinker, sports coordinator
at StarTribune.com and adjunct professor in
the Humanities and Media and Cultural Studies
Department.
It’s a classic story of apples vs. oranges,
Sinker explains: “Comparing the Minnesota
Daily to the Mac Weekly is like comparing a
struggling metro daily to a healthy local weekly
with a committed readership and a captive
advertising market. The Weekly—and other
papers like it—are healthy because they’re
serving an irreplaceable purpose for a strong
audience.”
College administrators understand the
important role a student-run newspaper plays
on campus, says Laurie Hamre, vice president
for student affairs. “From the institutional
point of view, the Mac Weekly plays a huge
role in campus communication,” she says. “It
builds a sense of community. It’s an essential
marker of campus life. Everyone—students,
faculty, staff—wants to see it.”
  
I’M GLAD TO HEAR that the Weekly’s heart
is still beating—and that folks remain committed
to resuscitating it should its steady
rhythm falter—because for most of my years
at Macalester, the paper was a central part of
my life. I was a reporter, an arts editor, and in
the fall of 1989 co-edited the paper with Martiga
Lohn ’90, now a political reporter for the
Associated Press.
Laboring away in the Weekly’s stinky, chaotic
offices, studying journalism with the late,
great Ron Ross, I built a love for words and
writing. I didn’t play sports at Mac, but I felt
like our ragtag group of editors scored the winning
goal every Friday when fresh copies of the
paper were lugged into the student center.
Editing the Mac Weekly inspired me to
make a career out of writing, which has been
the path of many of its editors over the paper’s
almost century-long history. (In the college’s
earliest years students published the Macalester
Echo, according to college archivist Ellen
Holt-Werle. The first edition of the Mac Weekly
was published in 1914.)
For this story, I tracked down a number
of former editors, all of whom agreed that the
Weekly experience—campus controversies,
demanding deadlines, junk food, all-night production
cycles—taught them that they could
build a professional life around words.
“It would be a real shame if there was nowhere
to let students put on training wheels
and give it a shot,” says Dan Fierman ’97, a GQ
editor who edited the paper in 1995. “That’s
what we did when I was there. We weren’t
perfect, but a lot of us moved on to pursue
successful careers in journalism. It was a great
training ground.”
 Mordecai Specktor ’72,
(known
as Mitch Specktor when he was
a
Macalester student from 1968
to 1970) Political science
1969
Editor and publisher
of American Jewish
World
Memorable Weekly moment: I
became editor of the Weekly thanks to
a cabal. Beforehand, I remember a discussion
in the dining commons, where
a plot was hatched to take over the
publications board and make me editor
of the paper. I’d edited an underground
newspaper at my high school, so this group
thought I had enough experience to run the
Weekly. Somehow we got a majority of my
buddies elected to the board, and they made
me Weekly editor. We thought the paper was
too “straight,” too mainstream, so we tried to
have some fun with it, to play with people’s
idea about what a college newspaper should be
like. Later, some people tried to get me fired,
but they failed. The Minneapolis Star even ran
an article about the controversy.
His Weekly mission: It was a different time
in America. There was a real culture clash.
Having long hair like I did meant that people
would scream at you out of their car windows
as they drove by. At Macalester the campus
was pretty much divided between hippies and
jocks. We were the hippies, and we wanted to
poke fun at the conventions of the “normal”
world. Once we ran a fictitious story about the
theft of drugs from the campus health service.
That really ticked some people off, but it was
our goal to make every issue of the paper test
the credulousness of our readers.
 Claude Peck ’77
History, English core
1976
(That semester the paper
was edited by an editorial
collective of six; Peck was a
member.)
Senior editor, arts
and interactive, StarTribune
His Weekly mission: Most of us working on the
paper that year were more interested in politics
than journalism. We prided ourselves on being
non-provincial: We didn’t want the paper to
just have campus news. We were interested in
the campus’s relationship to the city and the
world. We reported on issues in the city at large
and even had a digest of world news.
Why an editorial collective? This was
the mid-’70s. Several of us had been
involved with the growing grocery
store co-op movement, so the
cooperative angle naturally developed
that way. We wanted to
smash the hierarchy. When we presented
the collective idea to the publications
board, I remember someone saying,
“You’ll need to have an editor-in-chief to call
the shots,” but somehow we convinced them
we could make it work. With so many of us
working together, the process took longer. Everything
had to be chewed over and discussed.
It was frustrating, but somehow we managed
to get out a paper each week.
Making their mark: We didn’t like the sound
of the Mac Weekly, so we changed the name to
The Macalester Weekly. We thought the whole
“Mac” thing sounded too peppy and sportsoriented.
The next semester the new editor
changed the name back.
What he gained: When you’ve struggled to get
something finished as a team, you develop a
sense of mission and commitment that only
undergraduates can have. When you’re working
hard with friends to accomplish something,
you get this great feeling of accomplishment,
of “Wow. We got another issue out!” During
that time, the newspaper fever got into me. It
has stayed with me all these years.
 Gretchen Legler ’84
Political science
1983
Creative writing professor,
University of Maine at
Farmington
Life plan: I thought I’d major in
political science and become a foreign correspondent. I’d wear a trench coat and everything. Working
on the student newspaper was clearly part of that plan.
The best part of the job: Every Friday, after being up all night
putting the paper to bed, we’d go out for breakfast at the St.
Clair Broiler. Somehow we managed to stay awake and go to
class. Then you’d come back and see people reading copies of
the paper in the Union. It felt like a real accomplishment.
Favorite stories: We thought of ourselves as competing against
the Minnesota Daily. We won awards for our work. One really
memorable story I worked on was when Metropolitan Stadium
was torn down. Our photographer got some great photos of
the old stadium and I went to the last game there and interviewed
people. We followed up with a story about the new
Metrodome and what
it was like playing—
and watching—sports
indoors.
Most-excellent mentor:
Journalism professor
Ron Ross served as
an unofficial adviser to
the Weekly. He was so
funny and charming and intelligent and respectful of us and
of what we were trying to accomplish. He taught us so many
things and inspired us to do our best. He was tough, but you
could tell he cared. It was my goal to get an A in one of his
classes. I finally got an A-, and I was really proud of that grade.
 Lynette Holloway ’87
Political science, journalism major
1987
Chicago-based celebrity and entertainment
writer. Formerly staff writer for
the New York Times and Ebony.
Self-directed: I always wanted to be a reporter.
When I got to Macalester, my plan was
to work on the paper, starting as a reporter and
working my way up through the ranks to columnist,
managing editor, and ultimately editor.
Tight-knit: So many great people were involved in the Weekly. There was a real cadre of committed journalists.
When I started out, everyone was nurturing,
and I grew to be fiercely loyal to the paper.
We never missed an issue, no matter how hard
it was to pull off. It was exhausting but fun.
Paying the price: Those Thursday nights were
really horrible. On Fridays, it was all I could
do to stay awake. Jack Weatherford would
say, “Lynette, you’ve got to do better.” He was
right: Friday mornings I’d be nodding off in
class or I’d show up late—if I showed up at all.
Jack went through that with all the Weekly editors.
I also ran track, and when we had meets
on Friday afternoons it was tough. To stay
awake enough to compete I’d drink coffee and
eat jelly beans. Thank God caffeine and sugar
aren’t considered doping.
The things they covered: During my time on
campus, the paper was a hotbed of social and
political activity. We focused on the [Austin,
Minnesota] Hormel strike and on the college’s
investments in South Africa. Also, Minnesotan
Walter Mondale ’50 ran for president and
we were all over that story. Some of our stories
stirred up controversy among students
and the administration, and some of their
reactions gave me a real sense of the power
journalists wield.
 Charles Anderson ’90
(a.k.a. Chank Diesel, Charles
Andermack) Studio art
1989
Typeface
designer, owner of
Chank Co, Minneapolis
How he got the job: I was interested in
design, but I couldn’t find an extracurricular
activity where I could focus on that interest.
I ended up hanging out at the Weekly office,
and one year when the time came to pick an
editor, everybody with editorial qualifications
was too busy to apply. So I said I’d do it and
they let me, which was crazy because I was not
taking it seriously.
Style over substance: In my paper, content
was an afterthought. Design was the focus. It
still boggles my mind that they let me be the
editor. My paper was goofy, but it helped me
work on my design chops. I redesigned it every
week, making the Weekly look like the Twin
Cities Reader, the Star Tribune, the Carletonian.
I wanted people to see a fresh newspaper.
His legacy: I get asked back to Mac sometimes
to talk to students, and there are still people
who come up and say, “Are you the guy who
blew the whole year’s budget on a full-color
issue?” It’s true. I did that. The issue looked
great, by the way.
Perks of the job: The Weekly office was my
favorite place to hang out. It was a great environment
where we could write on the walls
with markers and eat all the pizza we wanted.
It was a clubhouse, an all-night party every
Thursday night. I also got to learn a lot of
things that helped me later on. It was an awesome
part of growing up.
 Dan Fierman ’97
History
1995
Senior editor,
GQ
How he got the job: When
I became editor, the Weekly
was the redheaded stepchild on
campus. It was run by three dedicated people
and basically ignored by everyone else. I was
only a sophomore, but they were desperate for
somebody to take it over, so they gave it to me.
I tried to make working on the paper fun again,
to build a sense of a great shared endeavor.
Memorable moments: At that time, we were
still printing out individual pages, pasting
them onto boards, and sending them to Iowa
to be printed. A truck would come each week
to pick up the boards, but if we missed the
deadline, we’d have to drive them to Iowa ourselves.
This was after being up all night. It was
a long haul.
What he gained from the experience: Macalester
allows students to find their space, to
succeed or fail on their own. Not many colleges
would let a sophomore with zero experience
take over the student paper. But they
did, and I’m happy for that. I’m a senior editor
at GQ magazine today, and I’m not sure that
would’ve happened without the experience I
had at the Weekly.
 Eliot Brown ’06
History and geography
2006
Reporter, the
New York Observer
The hardest part of the
job: Staying up all night
every Thursday was a pain.
When I was editor, I tried to
get things done earlier, before four
or five in the morning, but it never worked
out. A group of people should be able to get
that paper finished in two hours, but somehow
the stories would keep coming in late and then
we’d have to change a page and then the server
would be slow and so on. It was exhausting.
Most-read stories: There was a small series of
student muggings that we covered extensively.
We also tried to run stories that were more relevant
to a weekly format, broader pieces on the
rising cost of college, admission rates, grade inflation,
and energy consumption. We realized
we couldn’t break news, so we were into analysis.
We had a really competent ad manager, so
we were cash rich and produced an extra Sunday
supplement–style magazine. |
HOUSEHOLD WORDS
FUELING THE ARTS THOROUGHLY MODERN MARLON
ALLERGY INNOVATOR
TOUGH LAUNCH
FIT TO PRINT
WEST WINGER