Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York
Reporter Newspaper and Magazine, 1968-1971
First cover: After decades as a weekly campus newspaper (below), Reporter changed to a magazine format in January, 1969. Grant Hamilton. was the founding editor, with a team that included Bob Kiger, Dean Dexter, Neil Shapiro, Dave Folkman, and Jim Sutherland, and later Greg Lewis, Meredith Gould, Keith Taylor, Patti Paul, and Greg Enos. Serving as faculty advisors at various times were Professors Thomas J. O'Brien, W. Frederick Craig, Dr. Mark F. Gulden, and Arthur A. Terry. Terry would regale the staff with stories of high level editorial meetings when he was picture editor and later director of layout and production at National Geographic, prior to his joining the RIT faculty.
Reporter archives
RIT Digital library.
Dean Dexter, Neil Shapiro, co-editors-in-chief, and Jim Sutherland, feature editor, basement offices, student union building at the then-new brick* campus, Henrietta N.Y., after the Institute moved from its downtown Rochester inner-city campus, 1970.
Gregory P. Lewis, Techmila (yearbook editor), later Reporter executive editor and editor-in-chief
David Folkman, art director, cartoonist, and graphics consultant
Meredith Gould, executive editor
James Sutherland, feature editor and later
editor-at-large
Patti Paul, news editor
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Himself comes to visit...
Harold T. P. Hayes, legendary editor of Esquire Magazine, gives a tutorial on editing and magazine publishing to Reporter staff in the new offices in the student union basement, February, 1969. From left, Dean Dexter, Neil Shapiro, Grant Hamilton, Dick Boissonnault, Hayes, Irving Skip Blumenthal, also a Techmila editor.
Hayes said that in 25 years people would be reading their newspapers and magazines from their homes and offices from computers. We were incredulous at such an idea. Later that year, Reporter Magazine installed a state of the art IBM cold-type production system (see below), enabling the staff to design and paste-up the weekly editions in the area behind where Hayes is sitting.
From left: Hayes, Blumenthal, Dexter, Tom Doughtry, Dave Folkman, Shapiro, Hamilton.
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IBM representatives trained Reporter staff on the new IBM production system, Spring 1969.
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From the Scrapbook
Reporter newspaper staff, March 1968, nearly a year prior to the conversion to magazine format, pictured on the old RIT Graphic Arts Research Center web press in downtown Rochester: Publisher Pat Collins, Ed Simon, advertising, Amilda Rockwell, secretary, Mike DeSantis, news editor, Martha Jane Freeto, proof reader, Bob Kiger, photo editor, Dean Dexter, feature editor, Neil Shapiro, managing editor, Phil Fraga, outgoing editor, Peter Beesely, art editor, Grant Hamilton, in-coming editor. The photo commemorates the winning staff of Reporter for taking first place for general excellence in college news reporting in upper New York state that year. Absent: David Folkman, graphic arts director.
End of an Era: Dr. Mark Ellingson announces his retirement as RIT's longtime president in the Board Room with Arthur L. Stern, chairman of the Institute's Board of Trustees. Grant Hamilton and Dean Dexter cover the event, Spring 1969.
Art Director Dave Folkman "buried in comics:" promoting an exhibit of his comic art collection at the old RIT library, downtown Rochester (March, 1966).
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"Oh, crap....We're on Deadline! Get to Work!"
An unfortunate likeness of Inspector Clouseau revealed here...
"No one cares...it's going to mean another all-nighter...we're screwed..."
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No such thing as a 'No Smoking' sign in this office...
Jim Sutherland and Patti Paul discuss a story idea...
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Whatnot
Iconic radio personality Jean Shepherd with Reporter writer Dean Dexter, Fall 1968, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York. Shepherd is eyeing an article of his, published in that month's Playboy magazine, which made him an even bigger hero to the over-serious young scribbler. Shepherd was gracious enough to autograph the copy with a personal inscription, but Dexter later lost it when he weeded out his collections.
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Among the Celebrated Reporter Alumni of this Period...
Neil Shapiro at a typewriter pre-Steve Jobs...
During these years Neil Shapiro published short stories and novellas in Ed Furman's The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Shapiro was mentored, with Jim Sutherland, by Los Angeles-based author and screen-writer, Harlan Ellison, whom Shapiro brought to RIT with such luminaries as Arthur C. Clark, Robert Silverberg, Anne McCaffery (who at the time was planning to relocate to Ireland), among others, to participate in what turned out to be one incredible campus writing forum. After RIT, Neil Shapiro became Electronics Editor of Popular Mechanics Magazine and founding editor of MacUser Magazine, published by Ziff-Davis. He became an early pioneer of building online communities, mainly with Compuserve, where he developed and led various interactive forums, including the Apple/Macintosh communities.
Dave Folkman
served as art director and cartoonist for the RIT Reporter, in both its
newspaper and magazine formats. After receiving his undergraduate degree at the
Institute in 1968, David continued to serve Reporter Magazine while
earning a graduate degree (MFA-69), as a
graphics consultant, friend and mentor to the staff. He currently resides in Los
Angeles, California, and co-publishes a magazine dedicated to the art,
cultural and history of cartooning called
Hogan's Alley.
RIT Classics from the David Folkman collection...
Courtesy of David Folkman and Hogan's Alley
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Courtesy of David Folkman and Hogan's Alley
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It was a tradition for Reporter staff members to pose for an annual group photo in the courtyard of the U.S. Courthouse in downtown Rochester, N.Y. This one, taken in the fall of 1968 before the move to the Henrietta campus and transition to the magazine format, was the last one: Clockwise: Amanda Rockwell, Neil Shapiro, Peter Beesely, Grant Hamilton, David Folkman, Faculty Advisor Thomas J. O'Brien, Bob Kiger, Ed Simon, Phil Fraga, Mike DeSantis, and Dean Dexter.
Among the Reporter newspaper staff, from a larger photograph taken in downtown Rochester in 1966: Dave Folkman, art director, center with easel, Editor Dave Gregory, left seated, Faculty Advisor and School of Journalism Director, W. Frederick Craig, top left with arms folded, and then photo editor/future Editor Phil Fraga, holding the camera, bottom right. The gentleman wearing the dark shades is graphic arts director John Reitzammer.
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A time of marches, coffee houses and "student rights."
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The legal drinking age was 18. It would be cold gin martinis on the student union mezzanine with a professor or two most afternoons. There was beer on tap in the basement RITskeller. A pack of Marlboros cost fifty cents. The keg parties, the class work, the all-nighters, the frosh orientations, the holidays came and went, but the war went on and on...
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Still, they were good years.
Summer 1968...a couple of optimists ready for action on a Saturday night in downtown
Rochester...hmmm..."youth is wasted on the young," a wise somebody once
said..."Vanity, vanity, all is vanity," wrote the Preacher.
Something, from Scott Fitzgerald:
"...and some I have quarreled with and don't see any more...".
Still, they were good years.
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*Brick City, April, 1970 - Dean Dexter photo
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Link to today's Reporter Magazine
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