C. Steven McGann is Ambassador to Fiji, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Tonga, and Nauru

The extent to which I support international relations as a field of study can best be described in how I used to mock IR majors. In my estimation, IR majors seek to study economics and government, while studying neither.

Nevertheless, it is still pretty cool that C. Steven McGann CMC '73 is an ambassador to Fiji, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Tonga, and Nauru. I haven't read anything in the news recently -- or really, ever -- about any of those countries, so I suspect relations are good there.

I would bet a dollar that no CMCer could place all of them on a map...

Some Quick Questions for Wednesday's Panel

I'll be speaking on a panel at the Student Media Forum up at Pomona on Wednesday, September 9.

Here are some of the questions that they have sent me. (Not sure why they repeated one of them...) Some of my answers are in italics.

Questions for Student Slate Panelists

State names and briefly list experience working on student media at Claremont Colleges.

I was editor last semester of The Claremont Independent and I'm a columnist (of sorts) for The Forum. I am the founding editor and contributor to The Claremont Conservative, which I created in September of my freshman year.

Name and state mission of publication you are representing (publication you currently work for).

As I see it, my role as a writer on campus is to be critical of some of the activism and policies of the administration and my fellow students. With offense intended to The Student Life, I feel as if the mainstream newspaper on campus does a poor job of being objective, factual, or well-written, and I've sought to rectify that through my work on The Independent and The Claremont Conservative.

Describe size and scope of publications, medium, goals, and how it operates.

The Claremont Independent is available at claremontindependent.com and produces a monthly (if we're lucky) magazine that covers speakers at the Athenaeum and campus events from a conservative viewpoint.

The Claremont Conservative is available at claremontconservative.com. It is more iconoclastic than The Claremont Independent and represents largely, but not exclusively all of my opinions regarding campus events, speakers, policies, etc. I try to cover only Claremont events, although I do cover national events, when a Claremont professor weighs in.

General “State of the Union” type question: Why is student media important? What needs can it, does it, and should it serve on campus? How well is it doing and what can be improved?

Student media is important because otherwise unaccountable administrators would run roughshod (either deliberately or unintentionally) over the rights of students on campus. Witness David Daleiden and Kyle Kinneberg's ordeal. It continues to provide a more freewheeling form of expression for students of all political hues and stripes on campus. Right now, it is in its infancy. Expect to see more videos online and more audio content, especially at The Claremont Conservative.

How does your publication contribute to discourse at the 5Cs? Alternatively, how is your publication unique in its contribution to a healthy intellectual debate at the Claremont Colleges.
TSL, for instance, will not publish an anonymous letter to the editor. Is there a value of anonymous contributions to campus publications?

I think the point of whether or not anonymous contributions are included in The Student Life, The Forum, or elsewhere misses the mark.

Obviously, anonymous actors often influence (or distort) campus events, such as the misguided efforts to ban Pomona's school song and the anonymous leafleting that occurred beforehand. Anonymous actors will continue to exert an influence on school events, as long as there are rumor mills. What editor must do is evaluate what is true and what is not, so as not to embarass himself.

It is my belief that a statement made with a name carries far more weight than one made without it and comment policies should reflect that. But, and I should make this clear, censorship of anonymous or named comments has no place on websites that are paid for by other students' fees.

A way around this would be to remove all student fees from the budgets of the newspapers, but this doesn't look like it will happen anytime soon.

The Student Life, in my opinion, has become complacent by the lavish subsidies (really student fees) bestowed upon it by ASPC and Pomona College. (Witness when they plagiarized The Claremont Independent's story on Petropoulos and the Nazi art work.) The Forum also runs this risk, but so far, now that it is under Abhi Nemani's leadership, it has avoided those pitfalls.

What is your read on students’ and community members’ perceptions or opinions of your publication? In what ways do you work to correct misperceptions or address concerns about your publication’s work?

Whenever someone chooses to make a public statement, they expose themselves to the risk that they will be misperceived, or worse yet, that their message will be deliberately distorted. Without going into too much detail, that's some of the problem facing my work at The Claremont Conservative where I'm afraid there's been a concerted effort by a few people who disagree with me politically to malign me publicly and privately. They often go at great lengths -- anonymously, of course -- to say specious things in the comment sections of any post I write, or spread things about me through the rumor mill.

I'd be lying if I said it doesn't bother me, but it goes with the territory. On the whole, though, I should stress that I've been extremely pleased with the reaction I have gotten and the opportunities that have been afforded to me. I've been a finalist for two awards, won several others, and spoken in front of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) where I made some great friends. Alums routintely send me thank you notes and on a few occassions, money, to continue doing what I do.

Do you think that students and community members feel as if they are participants in 5C media? Give some examples why or why not.

Most recently, after The Forum and The Student Life were missing in action ,when two students were banned for videotaping a public lecture, more than 600 members of the Claremont Colleges joined a Facebook group calling for their immediate reinstatement. I put up documents and the videos showing just how poorly treated these boys were by Pomona's Dean of Women, Marcelle Holmes. The deans even threatened to call the cops on them, if they showed their faces again.

Many people came together. Some protested by refusing to donate money to CMC until CMC's administration responded. (Initially, the boys were hung out to dry.) Less than five days after their initial banning, the boys were allowed to go on Pomona's campus again, thanks to our work. (Thankfully, it didn't come to legal action, though I'm told the boys were preparing.)

Hopefully, this event was a warning to would be administrators that if you censor students, there will be consequences. We will make you famous, and you will make yourself infamous.

How should student publications adapt as we move into an age of online media?
From an economic side, I don't fully understand why newspapers aren't almost entirely online. It is cheaper, more accessible, and where most of us spend much of our days, anyways. It allows easy syndication.

Should student media be subject to censorship?

Not unless adminstrators want a lawsuit or serious publicity for violating the Leonard Law.

Teaching Snotty Pomona Kids Where to Put Snot?

Too funny to check:

CBS News reports that Pomona College is teaching freshmen a mandatory class on -- what for it -- "the proper way to sneeze and cough (the answer: into one's sleeve)."

Well, you know, I'd be willing to volunteer to teach them how to wipe their asses, but given how there are just so many swell guys that populate Pomona, I'm sure they have that one covered already.