Student Journalism
at
New York University
1894-1970
By Richard D. Carreño
I
LATE IN AUGUST 1968, The New York Times reported that John F. Hatchett, New York University’s Black student center head, had made remarks construed as antisemitic. The ensuing controversy over the interpretation of Hatchett’s views threw the University into turmoil. Many Black students, some of whom had nominated Hatchett as director of the Martin Luther King Student Center, resented "outside"—and even, it was contended—racially-motivated second-guessing of their choice. The Times, in an editorial, had furthermore suggested that Hatchett should consider resigning, or be removed.
Tempers were already emotionally charged. In Chicago, the Democratic National Convention nominated Hubert H. Humphrey, an apologist for the Vietnam War, over peace candidate Eugene McCarthy as the Democratic Party's presidential candidate. In a Los Angeles hotel kitchen a month earlier, Senator Robert F. Kennedy was murdered. A few months before, Martin Luther King had been killed in Memphis. That spring, at Columbia University's Morningside Heights campus, radical students went on strike, effectively closing the university. Police intervention assured the strike's bloody end.
With the University’s autumn semester soon underway, many students at NYU’s Washington Square campus sensed that a strike of their own was in the wind—largely powered by anger and frustration bred by the Vietnam War. A galvanizing catalyst for protest had become the swirling hostility surrounding John F. Hatchett.
***
The Washington Square Journal had reported the student strike at Columbia. Two reporters had covered, earlier in August, the Democratic National Convention—and subsequent rioting—in Chicago. For now, at NYU, the possible spill-over from the Hatchett Affair had become the story.
In mid-September 1968, as the new semester began, the Washington Square Journal went missing in an official listing of student-run publications at the Greenwich Village campus, in the then-current, new edition of "On the Square," the campus’ activities directory. "On the Square" editors knew, unlike the 17,000 returning undergraduate and graduate students that fall, that the Journal was riven by internal strife over editorial direction and management that might prevent publication for the first time in its thirteen-year history. Out of caution, “On the Square” spiked the Journal entry.
***
THE PAPER’S WOES began in the spring. Co-editors-in-chief Andrew Cagen (later, in the fall, a reporter for The Record in Hackensack, New Jersey) and Richard Prince (later a reporter for The Washington Post), had planned to upgrade the tabloid's twice-weekly publication to three times a week. This latter schedule had been the rule until 1963. Despite some misgivings by the business staff, reporters and editors largely greeted the proposed change with enthusiasm. The Managing Board agreed the increased frequency would revitalize the paper. But Cagen and Prince also argued that the revised schedule would not be financially feasible. For one thing, they said, the paper's printers, All-Set Printers in Chelsea, would not print the Journal within the paper's current, or anticipated fall budget.
Moreover, they added, the paper's editorial freedom could be compromised if the University continued to underwrite the paper's operating budget and staff stipends. Financial independence, a model at other university papers, was recommended. Some editors stressed potential Administration censorship. Others noted a growing rift between the paper’s editorial and business-advertising divisions.
"The business staff was always appointing Phi Eps to new positions on its staff," Prince remembered. "They tended to be—they were—more conservative, and they didn't go along with the paper's semi-New Left editorial policy."
Highlighting the estrangement was the prospective endorsement in the 1968 presidential contest. Editorial had supported Kennedy. Shortly before his assassination, Barry Newman, The Times' NYU correspondent reported the Journal’s endorsement of Kennedy. The business staff—despite its depiction as "conservative"—endorsed former Wisconsin Senator Eugene McCarthy, an anti-Vietnam War candidate viewed to be even to the left of Kennedy. Outraged by the published Kennedy endorsement, the business staff (including future editor-in-chief Madeline Weisberger) wrote to The Times "correcting" Newman's endorsement story.
Their letter to the editor was ignored. Friction between the two staffs heated up. Prince complained that the sports and business staffs operated like "fiefdoms." "The editor-in-chief [was] really only the editor of the news columns," he said. Joining editors Cagen and Prince in their critique were Nancy McKeon, another former editor-in-chief, and the Journal's executive editor, Robert Oppedisano, who had been elected incoming editor-in-chief.
Their solution was expanded publication frequency. The plan was risky, given the paper’s known budget constraints. Still, the editors believed that it would be almost certain that the Administration would fund any forthcoming shortfall. They also knew that their expansion plan would meet with resistance from Business Manager Louis Capozzi, a fiscal watchdog who believed that the paper should publish within budget.
As for potential censorship, that point theoretically was correct. The University, as Journal's publisher, could attempt to influence the paper. This had never been done, and there was no reason, nor, evidence, to believe that the liberal-minded Administration of President James M. Hester would so going forward. In the 1967-1968 school year, the only "intimidation" had been a few letters from Dr. Harold B. Whiteman, Jr., the mild-mannered assistant chancellor for student affairs, requesting that the paper revise its policy of freely printing vulgarities. The letters were dismissed. Moreover, the Journal's faculty advisor, M.L. “Mike” Stein, the journalism department's chairman, had little interaction with daily activities.
Finally, plans for the Journal’s expanded frequency were scrapped. Cagen, Prince, and Oppedisano had an unstated agenda in mind. "So we decided to form a new paper," Prince recalled.
We also hoped to take several reporters and associate board members with us, which we did. We wondered at first what would happen to Journal. But after a while, it didn't really matter what happened because, we felt, we would have the superior paper. We would be aggressive in getting ads, while Journal was lethargic. We had all the experienced editors, while Journal's would be new.
