[UPDATE (9/19/11): No one called me out for forgetting to update this posts a couple of weeks ago, but Dan Sweeney is now an official employee. He started the week before last.]
It’s official: Local freelancer Dan Sweeney will be the full-time, paid adviser to FAU’s student newspaper a week or two from now.
He’s accepted the offer and completed most of the paperwork stage. According to Sweeney’s new boss, new student media director Michael Gaede, he’ll start on Sept. 6 or 12, depending on how quickly his paperwork gets processed. They’ll know for sure by the end of tomorrow (I’ll update this post if you check back on Thursday).
In the interim, I’ve been asked for my take on Sweeney by a couple of non-newspaper members of the Office of Student Media. I’ve answered them pretty bluntly but don’t think it’s fair to opine publicly before Sweeney even gets started.
So instead I asked him what he had to say about himself and his new gig. We spoke by phone for about 15 minutes yesterday.
Part of Dan Sweeney's freelancer profile at MediaBistro.com. Screenshot: Taken Aug. 30, 2011 (click to enlarge)
Sweeney seems genuinely excited about getting involved with student media and likened it to “a dream job.” Hopefully that means we’ll get to meet him early at this Friday’s University Press staff meeting (I heard he’s been invited since last week).
Sweeney seems to understand that a student newspaper adviser’s role is just that: advisory. When I asked if he had any plans going into the job, he first acknowledged that his role may vary somewhat from one editor-in-chief to another since the level and manner of his involvement will depend on the editor-in-chief’s needs and wants. I was impressed, as that realization indicates that he grasps the nature of his new position in a way that most candidates for the job didn’t — and that most of the Division of Student Affairs still struggles to, in my opinion.
He also demonstrated an informed and ethical stance on prior review and prior restraint. He claimed to be against both but did say he’d hope students would want to share their work with him before it’s published. (I told him that would probably happen naturally if he gains their trust and they become comfortable with him.)
My one disappointment was a lack of concrete details. When I asked Sweeney about his plans, he volunteered few specifics. When I asked how much of the UP he’s read and what he thought of it, he only mentioned the past three issues, about which he had generic comments (e.g., a new student guide is helpful to freshmen) rather than journalistic commentary.
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NEXT WEEK: What the new adviser means for his predecessor
Tags: Daniel Sweeney, Michael Gaede
