Last week, I fooled the news.
Like a lot of other campuses in the US, my alma mater has been making a lot of highly public missteps, earning them the moniker of Homeless Student University–among other things. National news attention and public outcry has not stopped the university from continuing to focus on enrollment numbers at the cost of many other metrics.
In January, a switch to Cal Poly status brought much needed funds, and increased enrollment targets without a concurrent emphasis on shoring up infrastructure like student housing. Last month campus administration announced they’re removing dorm access for all returning and transfer students, and still might not have enough housing for incoming freshmen.
Unfortunately for that administration, their expensive PR team did not take the basic precaution of locking down all the obvious social media handles. So @calpolyhumboldt has churned out a steady stream of satire and memes lampooning decisions like renting out whole local motels or floating a barge in the bay.
When an anonymous page manager contacted me last month with a request to help polish up a press release offering as likely an option as the campus has actually offered, I immediately agreed to some pro bono work in the name of successful satire.
The rough draft outlined a plan for the current campus president to lease his office suite as temporary student rooms while working out of the business space at one of the leased hotels. As usual, I took my client’s idea and applied some genre-specific and audience-tailored tweaks to help it take on full life as something that might pass a cursory check. And boy, did it–don’t worry, I’ll break that down in detail for my next post.
After sitting on the release until April 1st, I came back to my desk on the evening of the 3rd to see a stream of video clips and article links from local news outlets in Humboldt County. Halfway through the first one, I realized this was a real newscaster at a real news desk. And proceeded to lose my cool, just a little.
A few days later, the retractions and removals started as the incident started to garner wider attention. But for a brief moment, I enjoyed the glow of success: I’m a real journalist! Or at least convincingly playing one behind the scenes.
Our masterful mischief has renewed attention on discussions of journalistic integrity, and hopefully also helped to refocus a wider audience on the students’ plight during this time of transition. Sometimes a little polish will take you right to the presses.
Something Polished 