The Young Grey Lady - Flop Eared Mule

The Young Grey Lady By
Amanda
on May 3, 2008 4:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

I had seen a few references to The Paper around the innertubes in the last few days and thought: weird. The Michael Keaton movie? Weird. If any of 1994s cineofferings was going to make a comeback to the zeitgeist, you'd think it'd be The River Wild. But then I read some recommendations of a couple of my favourite TV-related blogs (they both link to this) and I understood there was a new MTV reality series of that name. Of course it is not on telly here but of course I acquired it anyway. It follows the exploits of the Cypress Bay High (Florida) student newspaper. After the first minute I had to check Wikipedia to see that it was actually a reality show, so staged and scripted it seemed. But of course to a teenager in 2008 reality TV is so completely normal and even something to aspire to and we have reached the point where mock- has seamlessly cycled into doc- (umentary).

Mock will eat itself.

Note the blazer. I thought it looked very smart indeed. For an average rural state school, that was a particularly egregious teenage affectation and I'm still probably the only student since Scullin to have worn one. Oh sure the school captains wore them in official photos. I wore it all the time. To this day, if I want to mock the emos, I think of that blazer.

I've dipped in to The Hills (which is on the Foxtel version of MTV) so I'm familiar with the MTV Reality version of manufactured reality. As for The Paper, it is a highly entertaining slice of cleese and I'll be sticking with it.

Student newspapers in US television are such major events, produced with the same insane activity and caffeine-fuelled narcissism of the adult version. Like the US proms that rival the Oscars time Governor's Ball versus the daggy Aussie formal down the RSL. Mind, none of the Americans I actually know went to their proms but someone must.

It reminded me of my high school stint (12 days?) as co-editor of a supplement included in the local paper. So I dug it out.

There are no bylines to the stories a la The Economist and I can't recall if I actually wrote any, but we certainly did not shy away from the hard issues c.1992:

"The purpose of mathematics"
"Standing Stones" (these)
"There's no dress rehearsal in life! Learning without stress ... a quiet revolution arrives."
"New age tech drawing"
"Glen Innes High says 'no' to republicanism"
"Youth drop-in centre gives relevant advice." (a tad Onionish that one)
"The Aussie flag furore sparks school debate"
"Agriculture classes taking a completely new direction"
"From the hoof to the hook" (a brief photo essay about preparation for "the carcass judging of northern school's [sic] steer competition. Students are taking a keen interest in both on the hoof and on the hook competitions and in the process are learning the importance of 'dollar value' on saleable meat.")
"Satellite TV unit expands scope for learning" (I don't recall using it for learning but I was a nerd who hung out in the library at lunchtime and we used to watch American news shows. I learnt to have a crush on Tom Brokaw.)
"An evening of performing arts" - with yours truly in my award-winning role of Iago. A photo of our duologue (for the Shakespeare comp. Is it still on? Can't find a link, but it was quite big at the time. Ended in tears. Don't get me started.) was also featured.