F RI DAY, JA NUA RY 1 7, 2020
ILLUSTRATION BY: TARIKA KUMAR/THE HOYA
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THE HOYA
THE CENTENNIAL ISSUE
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Editors-in-Chief Quote Wall
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The Hoya Through the ’90s
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VP | Elaine Brousseau VP | Bernadette Tramm
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VP | Peter Morris VP | Karen Travers
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VP | Toby Hung & Daniel Almeida
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A1s Through the Ages
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History of The Guide
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Sports Highlights
FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2020 Issue Editor: Kiera Geraghty Managing Editor: Samuel Nelson Design Editor: Tarika Kumar Photo Editor: Sheel Patel Copy Chief: Katherine DeMatteo Contributing Editors: Madeline Broderick King, Nora Ma, Victoria Lei, Rosy Lin, Emily Kim, Jason Omori, Janis Park, Stephanie Parmiter, Ryan Siebecker, Jake Wexelblatt, Doris Zhang
about the issue To fully encapsulate the evolution The Hoya has undergone would be a near impossible task. In The Centennial Issue, the current staff of The Hoya has done our best to capture the distinct privilege it has been to serve the community of Georgetown University for a full century. The Hoya has not always been on the right side of history, whether that be in its characterization of women gaining admission or the unredeemable April Fools’ Issue of 2009. We acknowledge this history, and we strive every year to be better. As we head into the next century of The Hoya, we look back on our first 100 years with pride but also with a desire to continue to grow. We thank everyone who has brought us to this point.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2020
THE HOYA
“Having shepherded The Hoya through its 95th year, I’m proud to see it cross the century mark intact despite a half-decade that’s not inherently been kind to journalism as an industry and practice. When I signed off as editor-in-chief, I wrote that Georgetown and The Hoya were both at a crossroads — a distinguished university reckoning with all the good and the bad that accompanies being centuries old, while its newspaper grapples with an ever-more critical landscape where missteps are more likely. But perhaps the reality is that every step forward finds a new crossroads: constant chances for reinvention or adaptation, because there’s no terminus in sight— we’ve done 100 years and there’s no reason we can’t do hundreds more.” – Mallika Sen (SFS ’16)
“Then and now, I believe The Hoya’s role must be to ask questions and keep digging for answers on all aspects of the university’s operations, and to look outward to the world around us, too.”
“The Hoya is a vital Georgetown institution—for the university, its accountability, and its students. I wouldn’t be a journalist today without The Hoya.” – Emma Hinchliffe (COL ’15)
“But still, to my eye, The Hoya belongs to the students, as a voice of the students and to the students, of what they might not otherwise hear or see, through a student’s eyes and ears.” – Peter Morris (CAS ’74)
– Bernadette Savard Tramm (CAS ’73)
“For the last 100 years, The Hoya has served as a chronicle of historic moments at Georgetown, a reliable source of student news and an important watchdog for our campus. I’m so proud to be part of that tradition, one that I know staffers will continue to uphold as we head into our second century.” – Maya Gandhi (SFS ’20)
“As we evolve to meet the everchanging standards of 21st century journalism, we also maintain our core responsibility of serving the community. I can assure readers that our best work is yet to come.”
“How we communicate has evolved exponentially in the past 100 years, and it won’t slow down. But The Hoya represents more than communication: The Hoya is connection. No matter what media looks like in 10, 100 or 1,000 years, The Hoya will always be a platform by and for Georgetown students, faculty and alumni to build connections and push the conversation forward.” – Marissa Amendolia (COL ’11)
“To me, 1999 doesn’t feel that long ago, but in digital time, it’s been an eternity. The Hoya now breaks news online 24/7, and readers are pulled in through social media feeds. Twenty-one years ago, we were the pioneers, desperately trying to drum up interest in a site people could maybe only access in the library or the computer lab.” – Karen Travers (COL ’00)
– Toby Hung (COL ‘18)
“Working for The Hoya was the most memorable and important experience I had at Georgetown. The Hoya’s greatest strength over its past 100 years has always been its ability to uplift the voices of those who may otherwise not be heard. As it moves into its second century, I’m excited to see The Hoya build upon this foundation and continue to make the experience that I and thousands of other former staffers loved more accessible.” – Ian Scoville (COL ’19)
“I owe so many of my fondest memories, most important learning experiences, and most treasured friendships to The Hoya. And thanks to its tireless student staff, The Hoya has served - and will continue to serve - the Georgetown community with distinction. I can’t imagine the Hilltop with it.” – Kevin Barber (COL ’10)
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FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2020
THE HOYA
’90s Prove Pivotal as The Hoya Goes Online
KATHERINE DEMATTEO AND MAYA GANDHI Hoya Staff Writers
In fall 1988, The Hoya reached an inflection point. Just a year earlier, the paper had started printing twice a week, a decision that would last until fall 2017, doubling its weekly production and stretching editors’ capacity. The Hoya had also just moved into the brand-new Leavey Center, barely finished when Georgetown University’s newspaper of record relocated to its Leavey 421 home, as Ed Walters (COL ’92) recounted. Walters, who served as news editor, editor-in-chief and chair of The Hoya, called the 1988-89 school year “difficult and transformative.” Hoya editors spent the summer of 1988 moving out of their Copley Hall office and into Leavey 421, according to Mary Carroll Johansen (CAS ’88), who served as news editor and managing editor. Other than furniture, the Copley newsroom contained little to pack up except for The Hoya’s “wall of fame” — years worth of clips, cartoons and photos collected by generations of editors. The move marked a turning point in The Hoya’s history: Merely a decade later, the paper had covered the election and later impeachment of an alumnus and, most importantly, developed thehoya.com. For The Hoya, the 1990s ushered in a new era.
COVERING CONTROVERSY
Though The Hoya reported on daily oncampus happenings — from stories on facilities to controversies over the famed Healy Pub — two stories stand out as pivotal moments for Georgetown in the ’90s and underscore broader questions the Hilltop and The Hoya faced. Early in the decade, the campus — and Hoya reporters along with it — witnessed the saga of GU Choice, the pro-abortion rights group that evolved into the modernday H*yas for Choice. The group, which initially called itself Hoyas for Choice, first met in 1989, kicking off a three-year tug of war that tested the limits of Georgetown’s Catholic identity. H*yas for Choice originated as a forum for discussions about bodily autonomy
but grew to serve more student needs for both information and supplies, according to HFC Communications Director Chloe Kekedjian (COL ’22). The organization’s independence from the university is a testament to members’ dedication, according to Kekedjian. For The Hoya, tension about abortion rights peaked in 1989, when University President John J. DeGioia (CAS ’79, GRD ’95) — then dean of student affairs — prohibited The Hoya from printing an ad supporting abortion. The conflict encapsulated questions surrounding Georgetown’s Catholic identity, according to Brian Wheeler (COL ’93), who served as managing editor and editor-in-chief. “Pretty simple battle lines, right — it’s First Amendment freedoms, whatever you want to call them, versus the administration of a Jesuit university,” Wheeler said in a phone interview with The Hoya. The Hoya eventually compromised with the university on the disagreement about the ad, but as Georgetown entered the ’90s, the uproar over GU Choice had only just begun. The club was quickly barred from using “Hoyas” in its name because the term was considered a trademark of the athletic department, according to a Washington Post article by Walters. But DeGioia approved the club in 1991, allowing the group access to benefits to reaffirm the university’s commitment to open discussion, according to Walters’ Washington Post article. The administration’s support of the organization, though, was short-lived. In April 1992, amid a canon lawsuit with the Catholic Church, then-University President Fr. Leo O’Donovan, S.J., (CAS ’56) revoked GU Choice’s recognition as a club. GU Choice tested Georgetown’s commitment to its traditional Catholic values and a sense of inclusivity, according to Walters. “I think Georgetown really had to walk a fine line, both in terms of maintaining its Catholic identity, but also being very supportive of students and building a community
GU CHOICE!
COURTESY ROD DEMBOWSKI
The 1990s constituted a decade of notable political history for The Hoya’s coverage, both on the national stage and on Georgetown University’s campus.
DESIGN BY TARIKA KUMAR AND JASON OMORI
that was inclusive,” Walters said in a phone interview with The Hoya. By 1992, the presidential election forced GU Choice to cede the spotlight to one of the university’s most famous alumni. Bill Clinton’s (SFS ’68) campaign captured student interest regardless of their party allegiance, leading to events like rallies, debates in Red Square and election parties, according to Matthew Gobush (SFS ’94), who served as cochair of FOR Students for Clinton/Gore in 1992. “You really felt like you had a front-row seat to history being made,” Gobush said in a phone interview with The Hoya. “The Hoya and the newspaper was part of writing that history, of how Georgetown and Georgetown students for Clinton helped one of our own become president. I can’t tell you how exciting it was.” Clinton’s status as an alumnus gave students a
H*YAS
CHOICE!
more personal connection and encouraged them to get involved in politics, according to Gobush. “Many of us identified with Bill Clinton, who was a student who wasn’t — he didn’t expect to be able to go to a school like Georgetown,” Gobush said. “We could see in his story our story, too, potentially, and what was possible. That’s what made it really exciting. He was a student just like us.” The excitement continued in the months leading up to Clinton’s inauguration. As part of the inauguration festivities, the presidentelect spent a day on campus, a significant event for students, according to Wheeler.
H*YAS FOR
CHOICE
FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2020 “The fact that you had a Georgetown graduate who was going to the White House was obviously a very big story,” Wheeler said. The Hoya’s coverage of Clinton’s election was unprecedented: The paper, usually dedicated to covering campus news, reported on Clinton’s election and its aftermath to an extent unmatched until the 2008 and the 2016 elections. Clinton dominated the front page and opinion content for months before and after his election. Just a few years later, as Clinton became the second U.S. president to stand an impeachment trial, The Hoya covered the events. Many students were hesitant to either forcefully condemn or support Clinton considering his status as an alumnus, according to Jim Di Liberto (COL ’00), who served as editor-inchief and as the paper’s first online editor, a position that existed until 2014. But The Hoya’s editorial board did not share this hesitance: On Sept. 15, 1998, the paper published an editorial with the headline “Time to Resign, Mr. President,” according to Miro Kazakoff (COL ’01), a member of the editorial board who went on to be managing editor. “I remember it being very strange, but very cool; the national news sites, when they were talking about public opinion turning against the president, listing college newspapers that had called on the president to resign, and we were one of them,” Kazakoff said in a phone interview with The Hoya.
THE HOYA viously been typeset, and editors began laying The Hoya in-house. Still, The Hoya’s production process was incredibly laborious, according to Walters. Editors printed out articles in strips and precisely cut them to lay out the pages. Their goal was to submit the paper to the printer by 3 a.m., but they often did not finish until 7 or 8 a.m. Shifting to digital layout was a key
INTO THE INTERNET AGE
step in bringing The Hoya into the digital age, according to Jeff DeMartino (COL ’00), who served as news editor and editor-in-chief. “When I started, we still had wax machines,” DeMartino said in a phone interview with The Hoya. “By the time I graduated, all of that was done digitally. We had a website. It was kind of like night and day over the course of four short years.”
first email address for The Hoya. “I tried to get The Hoya a website, and we started developing one,” Hunt said in a phone interview with The Hoya. “We started putting one together, and the administration pushed back on it because it would be such public access that it wouldn’t just be limited to campus distribution.” By the beginning of the 1997-98 school year, however, Hoya editors felt the paper
It was the birth of thehoya.com in 1998 that brought the now century-old institution to the internet. Editors recognized the value in having an online presence by the mid-1990s but faced difficulty in establishing a website for several years, according to Alicia Hunt (SFS ’96), who served as senior news editor and editor-in-chief and who created the
“In one direction, it was that the internet was the future. And the other direction was the feeling that people read The Hoya while they’re in class or doing other things — and how could they ever pull out a computer and read a newspaper in the middle of class?” Miro Kazakoff (COL ’01) Former Managing Editor
GOING DIGITAL
A decade of change in not only content but also medium, the 1990s marked The Hoya’s entrance into digital format. The Hoya did not get its first computers until the late 1980s, according to Johansen. In 1988, the paper cut ties with the shop where the paper had pre-
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needed a website. But in the early age of the internet, little institutional knowledge existed on how to build a website from scratch, and The Hoya struggled to find staffers with the necessary computer science expertise, according to DeMartino. Throughout the spring and summer of 1998, a team of editors worked on early versions of the website — a team anchored by the famed filmmaker and “Westworld” creator Jonathan “Jonah” Nolan (COL ’98), according to Di Liberto and DeMartino. Nolan, who could not be reached for comment, helped develop an early version of thehoya.com and later served as online editor. Yet another unexpected obstacle appeared near the end of summer 1998, thanks to a rival publication, according to DeMartino and Di Liberto. “One of the things that was funny was trying to secure the rights to ‘thehoya. com.’ They were getting ready to secure the rights, and someone from The Voice went ahead and bought it, as a joke,” Di Liberto said in a phone interview with The Hoya. “I remember arguing with him at a party. And he eventually gave it back to us.” “While I can not personally confirm the veracity of that story, it sounds like a great prank made in the spirit of the friendly rivalry that has pushed the Voice and The Hoya to be better as we have tried to outdo each other in every issue for the last 50 years,” The Voice’s Editor-in-Chief Noah Telerski (COL ’20) wrote in an email to The Hoya. “Also, if given the opportunity, I can’t say we wouldn’t try and pull that again.” By October 1998, thehoya.com was up and running. But given the media environment of the moment, the newsroom still saw print as the dominant product, according to Kazakoff. “In one direction, it was that the internet was the future,” Kazakoff said. “And the other direction was the feeling that people read The Hoya while they’re in class or doing other things — and how could they ever pull out a computer and read a newspaper in the middle of class?” The Hoya’s newfound accessibility as an online publication introduced a daunting sense of responsibility, according to Di Liberto. “We became really conscious pretty quickly that, once we were publishing online, anyone could go and read what we were posting,” Di Liberto said. “It’s really a much bigger megaphone than I think we ever would have anticipated.” As The Hoya dramatically transformed its structure, one thing has stayed constant at The Hoya: The staffers in Leavey 421 are hard to forget. “I remember the people more than anything else. I’m still friends with huge numbers of the folks who were at The Hoya with me. I’ve been in some of their weddings and some of them have been in mine,” Di Liberto said. “It was just a great group of people — you kind of have to enjoy spending time with them, with all those hours that you put into the office. That stands out more than any kind of story or anything we covered.”
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THE HOYA
VIEWPOINT • TRAMM
A
Transitions on a Coed Campus
s astronaut Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon in July 1969 forever expanded humanity’s horizons, women setting foot on the Hilltop just a few weeks later transformed Georgetown University for all time. Although women were already enrolled in the School of Nursing, the School of Languages and Linguistics, and the School of Foreign Service, the arrival of the first four-year class of College of Arts and Sciences women marked Georgetown’s “giant leap” to a fully coed environment. As each new class brought more women, The Hoya chronicled the small and great impacts of a coed campus life. “Parietal,” for example, is a word anyone younger than 60 has likely never heard, as it describes the rules that governed when male and female students could visit each other’s dorms. As archaic as it now seems, disputes over the regulations grabbed headlines in The Hoya for the better part of four years. Beyond dorms and classrooms, the newly coed student body needed more places to study and hang out. The Hoya reported that the opening of Lauinger Library in April 1970 was an immediate hit with its many different study areas and extended hours. The creation of a small student center in the Healy Hall basement in late 1970 was also welcomed. The Hoya was undergoing its own
revolution, too, as women entered the old newsroom in the basement of Copley Hall, eventually leading to my election as the first female editor-in-chief in spring 1972. I was quoted as saying I wanted The Hoya to be the “watchdog of the administration.” Then and now, I believe The Hoya’s role must be to ask questions and keep digging for answers on all aspects of the university’s operations, and to look outward to the world around us, too. Back then, the rising enrollment resulted in more than half of all undergraduates living off campus by 1972. The Hoya covered the push for more student housing to retain Georgetown’s distinctive residential college experience, as we reported on the purchase of Alban Towers as a stopgap and on plans for new dorms to fill the gap. We also covered the “lemon-stration” in February 1973 as students deposited lemons outside the president’s office to protest a “sour deal” of rising tuition, room and board. Beyond campus, The Hoya engaged with the striking changes sweeping the nation. When the voting age was lowered to 18 by the 26th Amendment in 1971, The Hoya stepped up its responsibilities to inform and help empower newly enfranchised students. For example, The Hoya’s spotlighting of numerous Gaston
Hall speakers, like former Secretary of State John Kerry, then representing Vietnam Veterans Against the War, helped fuel the urgency students were feeling to engage with the world outside the gates at 37th and O. In fact, our very location offered Hoya writers and photographers an unparalleled opportunity to chronicle the massive student demonstrations in Washington, D.C., as “Peace Now!” chants reverberated during those years of confrontation and protest. The Kent State student shootings led to a national student strike in May 1970 that actually shut down Georgetown before final exams. May Day demonstrations the following year also brought students flooding to the capital and our campus. As student journalists, we were challenged to add our unique perspective to these national stories and highlight how Georgetown students were involved in ultimately changing the course of the Vietnam War. The Hoya also explored how other nationwide movements were affecting our campus. For example, we reported on the activities of the newly formed Black Student Alliance, as this small but active group of black students pushed for recognition of
their needs and the creation of the first Black Student House. The College Board recently asked what students need to know to succeed in college and in life. The answer: the two codes of computer science and the U.S. Constitution, particularly the First Amendment’s five freedoms. For me, the freedom of the press has never been more important. I couldn’t be prouder to be one of the women who stepped onto the Hilltop back in 1969 and to be part of The Hoya’s past. I look forward to its next 100 years of enlightening and empowering student journalism. BERNADETTE SAVARD TRAMM (CAS ’73) is a former editor-in-chief of The Hoya.
VIEWPOINT • BROUSSEAU
S
Challenging Exclusive Male Culture of The Hoya
omehow, Clifton Daniel was there. It was the 50th anniversary of The Hoya, and the managing editor of The New York Times was at the party at 1789 to help celebrate that milestone. As a lowly headline editor, a position I shared with another freshman, Paula Feeney, I was not one of the organizers of the party, so I have no idea how The New York Times luminary happened to be there — some of the editors had friends in high places, I suspect. And I don’t remember
whether his famous wife, Margaret Truman, daughter of President Harry Truman, was in attendance. All I remember is that the atmosphere was elegant, the conversation crackled and the food was a lot better than what any of us were used to. It was the male world that was The Hoya in 1970 on high display, a world that would see itself start to fissure in the next few years. The fall of 1969 had seen the first group of women enter the College of Arts and Sciences. There were already women on campus in the School of Nursing, the School of Foreign Service, and the School of Languages and Linguistics, but the College had been a male bastion until the 50 of us arrived. I knew from the first week on campus that I wanted to be involved with The Hoya. I wasn’t brave enough to walk into the office and ask to cover a news story, so I somehow ended up writing headlines. I spent long Sunday nights in the office reading news and sports copy, trying to come up with attentiongrabbing heads. In the dingy room that was The Hoya office in the Copley Hall basement in
those days, some very smart guys held court — and I did a lot of listening. I was in awe of veteran editors Charley Impaglia, Don Casper, Jim Duryea, George Condon, Don McNeil, and later Bob Bruso and Don Hamer and the clever way they tossed around ideas, toyed with them, and made fun of each other and pretty much everyone else on campus. They were good writers and nimble talkers, great examples of Georgetown University linguistics professor Deborah Tannen’s observation about how men use talk to establish hierarchy — how, for men, conversation is a competitive sport. Even though I felt intimidated, I learned a lot from these guys. For one, I learned to distinguish a good idea from the fair amount of intellectual pretension that often passed for discussion — while at the same time enjoying the verbal bravado! But I also learned to put myself forward. By spring, I had worked up the courage to ask for a story assignment and news editor Duryea had me report on the campus reaction to the hiring of the new dean of the School of Foreign Service, Peter Krogh. From there I traded on my English major credentials to review plays, first at Mask and Bauble, then at other Washington, D.C. theaters. These baby steps were encouraged most of all by Features Editor Paul
Bernabeo, a brilliant but quiet guy who didn’t feel he had to join the conversational fray. When he left his position as head of features — what the arts and entertainment section was called at the time — he tapped me, a sophomore, for the job, the first time a woman had held that position. I studied in Dublin my junior year, so I wasn’t in touch with things at the paper while I was away. But when I returned from Ireland, The Hoya was a different place. The guys who had dominated the conversation had graduated, and the paper had already had its first female editor-in-chief, Bernadette Savard. The men’s club atmosphere was gone. This is not to suggest that the barriers for women disappeared in those four years. In fact, some of those barriers were deeply internalized. I had forgotten — until I recently looked through some old copies of The Hoya — that I had signed several articles using only my last name and the initial of my first name, disguising the woman’s voice to give it more credibility. But the emergence of female writers on The Hoya in the first few years after that glittering 50thanniversary celebration represented a sea change for that publication and a challenge to The Hoya’s male culture. ELAINE BROUSSEAU (CAS ’73) is a former features editor of The Hoya.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2020
THE HOYA
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VIEWPOINT • MORRIS
The Hoya Belongs to the Students
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ll decades respond to a past and choose an approach to the future. The Georgetown Voice began its bold response to the 1960s when it published in March ’69. The Voice wanted to be The Village Voice for Georgetown University and to drag the university — students and administration — to engage the city. The Hoya chose to engage the university. We didn’t belong to the city. The Hoya belonged to the students. The context is important. Georgetown couldn’t escape the city any longer. Students had safely watched from the roof of Walsh Building as southeast Washington, D.C., burned in the aftermath of Martin Luther King Jr.’s death as if Georgetown were a city apart and unaffected. The massacre of four students at Kent State in protest of an unjust war had led to a simple
delay of finals that spring. Previous marches on Washington had ended in petitions and song. But May Day brought to campus tear gas and a perimeter of riot police and national guard, and students who ventured off campus were illegally arrested and rounded up with 12,000 others at RFK Stadium. Nixon’s decisions to invade Laos and Cambodia cost 22,000 American lives, and we were eligible for the draft — with the end of student deferments, we could be shipped off with just 12 weeks of basic training. It was a new decade of engagement. While The Voice engaged the city, The Hoya engaged our student body. Georgetown had indeed been a social cloister. We covered culture and arts and features and politics — student and national — but with analysis and commentary, not breaking news. We couldn’t compete with The Washington Post of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. Watergate was breaking. Impeachment was in the air. Even in an era devoid of social media, we couldn’t beat The Post. The Voice and The Hoya were flush with advertising revenue. The Voice spent its
money on delivering the paper to the city. We spent ours to build a better student newspaper. We invested in typewriters, cameras and darkroom equipment. We could publish twice a week. We could add special editions, features, extra pages, and indepth coverage and analysis. We could introduce our city to students and invite them to experience the arts at the new John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. We could invite them to listen to interviews with statesmen about politics and world events, analyses about Watergate or features about a new basketball coach who promised to bring fame to a fledgling basketball program. Follow our masthead. We invested in people. Our editorial board recruited. We grew. We began to reflect the student community. More women became reporters, then columnists, then editors. Within the editorial staff, news editors moved to arts, managing editors moved to features and sports editors moved to editorsin-chief. Good writers and editors asked to write what they loved to write. We said yes.
Sadly, as we begin a new decade, there are parallels to my time as editor of The Hoya: undeclared war, protests, incivility, a call for engagement with the city – metaphorically or in reality. The Voice was right. The city is there for us to engage. But still, to my eye, The Hoya belongs to the students, as a voice of the students and to the students, of what they might not otherwise hear or see, through a student’s eyes and ears. PETER MORRIS (CAS ’74) is a former editor-inchief of The Hoya.
VIEWPOINT • TRAVERS
“O
Launching The Hoya’s Online Presence
h my god, you are so old.” That was the reaction from my younger ABC News colleague when I told him I was writing a piece about my time as editor-in-chief of The Hoya and the birth of the newspaper’s website. He couldn’t believe that when I was in college, the internet was just an infant, that we had to start our newspaper’s website from scratch and that it took almost as long to publish online as it did to get the paper printed. To me, 1999 doesn’t feel that long ago, but in digital time, it’s been an eternity. The Hoya now breaks news online 24/7, and readers are pulled in through social media feeds. Twenty-one years ago, we were the pioneers, desperately trying to drum up interest in a site people could maybe only access in the library or the computer lab. I graduated in 2000 and never had a highspeed internet connection in my dorm, apartment or off-campus house. I got a cell phone when I was editor-in-chief, just in case of a Hoya emergency, and my friends made fun of me. Nobody else had phones, so I really had nobody to call. At The Hoya in the late 1990s, staffers who were web producers had technical skills the rest of us had never heard of — design, coding, photo editing. I’m still not sure where they learned their skills, but they earned them respect. In the early days of the website, we were not yet digitally transmitting the print edition to the printer. We designed each
section through a computer program but still had to print actual paper out to assemble on boards and hand over to a courier, who would take them to the printer. That meant the web team spent an immense amount of time essentially reinventing the wheel in taking what was designed for print and converting it to the web. Gregg Blais (COL ’01), who was a critical leader in the early days of TheHoya.com, reminds me that it was a clunky, timeconsuming process to get the entire edition to upload to the internet. “The most painful part was that FrontPage required you to publish the whole entire site each time you wanted to publish a change to the public site,” Blais said. Imagine a typo that needs to be fixed — you have to republish the entire newspaper for one misplaced comma! As the website grew, it took more time to publish the paper online, sometimes taking hours to finish. Usually, that meant the print staff would wrap up and head off to sleep or to catch a late-night drink while the web team worked until the sun came up. However, a major change occurred when Blais developed a new system that would generate article pages and main section pages after editors pasted completed stories into a web form. Less work for the web team, faster upload time. At the same time as this digital adventure, the photo team was also shifting to digital — no more developing photos in a dark
room or trips to a MotoPhoto on Wisconsin Avenue. That change meant web editors no longer had to scan in hard copies of photos. While the web team got the production process down, another big challenge for The Hoya in the late 1990s was driving traffic to the website. Remember, 1999 was before cell phones and mobile access to the internet. When Hoyas read The Hoya, they held it in their hands and flipped the pages. One innovative idea the team came up with was a new, online-only section known as The GUice Box. We sent our Hoya photographers out on campus and in the neighborhood to capture student life in a candid way. No posed photos, no directions. Just a flavor of the every day and night life of Joe and Jane Hoya. We ran in-house ads in the print paper encouraging students to see if they were spotted for The GUice Box. Nothing like an attempt to appeal to the healthy egos of college students. The GUice Box had a short run, but it probably helped our traffic. During my time at The Hoya, the web site was the side
show. Now it is the main event. I regularly check thehoya.com for the latest campus news, and I follow all of its social sites. It’s exciting to see The Hoya taking the same online approach as professional news organizations with a web-first mentality — breaking news before waiting for the ink to dry. KAREN TRAVERS (COL ’00) is a former editor-inchief of The Hoya.
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THE HOYA
VIEWPOINT • HUNG & ALMEIDA
Rebranding as a Digital-Focused Publication
A
t our first onboarding event for The Hoya, we remember how a wellknown news media professional who then consulted for The Hoya informed us that the only thing we need to know about a journalist’s job is that it is always changing. This was especially evident in 2016. The Hoya faced headwinds heading into its 98th year. When we started our roles as editor-in-chief and general manager, the newspaper was on a precipice. Print readership and thus advertising revenue had declined year after year. The continued focus on print, however, had disconnected the paper from the majority of our readers, who accessed our content online. The Hoya was also in serious need of investment, though a shrinking topline forced the organization to rely on external funding sources, making budgeting for investment virtually impossible. Against this backdrop, our leadership team engaged in a monthslong process to identify what change was necessary if the paper was going to survive the coming decades. As we kicked off an assessment to understand The Hoya’s future, it quickly became clear that we needed to become a digitalfirst publication. A pivot to an online daily format with a weekly print edition would allow us to leverage our deep content expertise, diverse and inclusive culture, and
entrepreneurial spirit to take on a quickly evolving media landscape. The leadership team put countless hours into a framework that would eventually form the foundation of this transition. We solicited input from experts, our membership and our readers, knowing much was at stake — no less than the future of an organization that had been integral to our Georgetown University experience. Our team set ambitious goals, but they were exactly what was needed to take The Hoya into the digital age. In the spring of 2017, having consulted with our most important organizational stakeholders and after 30 years of printing twice weekly, our leadership and the wider membership of The Hoya voted overwhelmingly in favor of transitioning to an online daily format with a weekly print edition. It was time to get to work. Our North Star was always our readers. Through the ups and downs of the organizational overhaul, we evaluated our work by how it would improve our content and further our relationship with our readers. Daily online publication necessitated a drastic increase in the volume of our content, and as we considered ways to increase our production capacity, we had to redefine our relationship with students, faculty and members of the community and
understand where there were gaps in our coverage. We also understood that online articles have always been met with greater scrutiny simply by nature of the medium, according to a study by Kantar. For our writers and editors, this skepticism meant increased diligence to ensure the factual accuracy of every article. It also meant a renewed emphasis on community outreach in pursuit of balanced representation. Within the first week of our term, we overhauled our entire online engagement strategy. Our readers had been finding us through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Correspondingly, we expanded our multimedia and social media teams and created content that would likely be consumed in a news feed on a mobile device. To succeed as a digital-first publication, we also needed to become a 21st century newsroom. Gone were the days of exchanging article edits physically through USBs and undependable hard drives. Cutting one of our print issues allowed us to reallocate resources to building cloud storage systems, introducing online project management and communication platforms, and replace a technology infrastructure first put together in the late 1990s. Perhaps the most important transformation of all, however, was cultural. Be-
EDITORIAL CARTOON by Advait Arun
coming a daily operation required our staffers to spend more hours in the office, often late into the night. This time was not spent on coursework, part-time jobs or social lives, but on publishing stories and giving a voice to people central to the Georgetown community. When someone is first hired by The Hoya, they are told that the quality of our product is only as strong as the quality of our staffers; our membership is our strongest asset. Therefore, it was necessary to invest heavily in our staffers and their well-being. We expanded staff professional development opportunities, formalized philanthropy efforts, built a strong network of Hoya alumni and piloted a health and wellness initiative. Those staffers who have worked with us know our bold predictions are few and far between, though, as we ruminate on our past experience with The Hoya, we feel confident in one thing: Though The Hoya will undoubtedly continue to evolve in its next 100 years, there is no better training ground to prepare today’s student journalists for tomorrow’s newsroom. TOBY HUNG (COL ’18) is a former editor-in-chief of The Hoya. DANIEL ALMEIDA (MSB ’18) is a former general manager of The Hoya.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2020
THE HOYA
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A1 THROUGH THE AGES
The first issue of The Hoya was published Jan. 14, 1920.
The Hoya and The Georgetown Voice released a merged issue Nov. 13, 1989, in protest of the university pulling an ad from a pro-choice organization.
In the Sept. 14, 1968 issue, The Hoya printed “Tradition Crumbles; College Adds Girls” after the decision to make the College of Arts and Science coed.
The April 6, 1984 issue featured the men’s basketball NCAA Championship win.
In the Nov. 6, 1992 issue, The Hoya covered the presidential victory of Georgetown alumnus Bill Clinton (SFS ’68).
The March 15, 2019 issue featured an investigation into Georgetown-affiliated priests credibly accused of sexual abuse. FROM HOYA ARCHIVES AND THE GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES
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FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2020
THE HOYA
The Guide Merges Art, Journalism for Decades ALLAN NAVARRO Hoya Staff Writer
What started 24 years ago as a way to review the latest movies and albums, attend concerts for free and distract from the busy Georgetown University lifestyle has evolved into a legitimate entertainment publication in itself, with interviews across the years from Hollywood titans like actor Bradley Cooper (COL ’97) and director Danny Boyle. The section, which today features dozens of staff writers and publishes articles online daily, is a far cry from what it was at its inception in 1996. Yet as The Guide has evolved, its foundational purpose of providing arts and entertainment content to Georgetown has remained true.
THE GUIDE-ING LIGHT
The Guide was founded in fall 1996 as an expansion to The Hoya’s one- to two-page weekly entertainment section. The initial reasoning behind creating the section was twofold, according to Andrew Curry (SFS ’98), who served as The Guide’s first editor. “As far as I knew there had always been an entertainment section, but it was usually one or two pages once a week,” Curry said in a phone interview with The Hoya. “It just seemed like there was a lot of potential that was unrealized.” With the support of the then Editorin-Chief John Keenan (COL ’98), Curry went to work on expanding the section to reflect student interests. The Guide was chosen as the section’s name because it would function as a guide to arts and entertainment both on and off campus, according to Curry. In its first semester, The Guide expanded from its intended four weekly pages to nearly outsizing the news and sports sections of the paper as its own insert, according to Curry. “At the beginning of the semester, we didn’t really know if it was sustainable,” Curry said. “Would we be able to keep expanding and growing? Would there be enough content? And then it turned out that there was, and so it kept growing.” In an era that predated mass internet communication, The Guide was instrumental in allowing students to access entertainment. Curry called local theaters and asked for movie listings that were printed weekly in the paper. Labels sent The Hoya CDs and glossy pictures of bands, seeking coverage to spread their message across campus. The early days of The Guide, however,
were not without notoriety. One of the very first columns The Guide ran was a bar column, in which a student would review local Washington, D.C. bars. This column, and the rest of The Guide, sparked the ire of the administration, according to Keenan. “The administration was complaining,” Keenan said in a phone interview with The Hoya. “They were saying, ‘You’re devoting so many inches to stories about non-campus things like movie reviews,’ and our bar review section, which they really didn’t like.” The Guide was able to continue, however, by providing an outlet for creative students to express their interests, while also creating more opportunities to work for The Hoya, according to Keenan. “What I did was I tried to reframe the conversation with the administration about increasing the amount of articles per issue,” Keenan said. “We can increase the number of students participating, which the administration saw as a benefit to the community.”
SHINY NEW FEATURES
The Guide persisted in its early form throughout the 1990s and 2000s, with the intermediary years featuring revolving content sections, including graphics of what was on top of the music charts that week and an advice column. Much of the change in The Guide’s content has come more recently, after the section became its own independent, magazine-style section of the paper three years ago. This change gave The Guide a distinct identity from the rest of The Hoya’s content that persists today, according to Marina Tian (NHS ’19), who served as Guide editor in spring 2017. “Formatting wise, it’s changed a lot, which gives The Guide its own identity more throughout the years,” Tian said in a phone interview with The Hoya. “That’s also fluctuated from before I started to during my time at The Hoya, from being more Georgetown focused to more D.C. focused.” The focus of The Guide shifted from its review section to its weekly feature cover story, otherwise known as DTs, as editors like Tian began to take a more journalistic approach to the section. These stories allow writers to blend creative writing with journalism, granting the section more prestige, according to Meena Raman (MSB ’20), who served as Guide editor in fall 2017. “DTs have evolved to reflect important things at Georgetown, like mental health
and sexuality — topics that are important on campus but that are also increasingly identified to the core community,” Raman said in a phone interview with The Hoya. “So I think The Guide — even though it sometimes gets a reputation of being a less illustrious section — it still has a very vocal identity.” Shifting the focus of The Guide’s content was also crucial to advancing The Guide as a reputable entertainment publication that focused itself on journalism, according to Toby Hung (COL ’18), who served as Guide editor in spring 2016 and editor-in-chief in 2017. “As a section, [The Guide] affords the most flexibility and creativity to its writers,” Hung wrote in an email to The Hoya. “During my time at The Hoya, I made it a priority to publish DTs, features and special issues on pertinent topics that readers cared about.”
TURNING TO SPECIALTY
The Guide’s new focus on journalism and spotlighting important topics on and off campus has been more recently represented in the section’s special issues, which started as early as 2013. From the Sex Issue published during Raman’s tenure to last semester’s Sustainability Issue, special issues remain a focal point of every semester for The Guide. Special issues are usually a combination of a feature-length cover story, shorter
articles and engaging graphics produced with the help of the design team all centered around a central topic. The Guide also publishes a fashion issue every semester, with themes revolving around current trends in the fashion world. This evolution of special issues allowed for editors to explore how special issues could be redone, according to Tian. “At the time, I think we were trying to think more creatively about what other special issues you can do,” Tian said. “So we used a more submissions style issue for our special issue that semester, a travel issue, and also for our fashion issue.” While The Guide’s focus has shifted dramatically in its 24 years, its core purpose of covering arts and entertainment for Georgetown students has remained intact. The longevity and impact of the section for The Hoya was unexpected to Curry but continues to showcase the importance of institutional memory. “I’m really proud that it’s still going — nearly a quarter of the time that The Hoya has existed, and it wasn’t self-evident when we started that that would be the deal,” Curry said. “It’s really wonderful to me that through all the different ways that journalism has changed, that Georgetown has changed, people have found a way to keep The Guide strong and thriving.”
THE HOYA ARCHIVES
The cover of an August 1997 issue of The Guide features a scathing review of English rock band Radiohead back when The Guide was a broadsheet section of The Hoya.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2020
THE HOYA
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Hoya Sports Rise in Prominence RACHEL GAUDREAU AND JAKE WEXELBLATT Hoya Staff Writers
Georgetown University sports first rose to prominence in the 1980s with the success of the men’s basketball program, culminating in a national championship trophy in 1984 that elevated the Georgetown athletic department to a nationally recognized program. Thirty years later, The Hoya has seen the 2010s usher in a new era of athletic excellence characterized by two national championships and over 30 Big East titles, pointing to a new decade of promising possibilities.
BASKETBALL HITS NATIONAL STAGE
In securing the university’s first national title, the Georgetown men’s basketball team set the precedent for athletic success on the Hilltop. The basketball program’s celebrated history took off with the building of the McDonough Arena in 1950 and has evolved to playing games at the Capital One Arena. The program produced a number of Hall of Fame players and has continued to remain in contention for another national championship, making runs at the trophy five times in the last decade. Patrick Ewing (CAS ’85), now the Hoyas’ head coach, brings in experience from a career on the Hilltop that included two Big East Player of the Year titles and three consensus All-America honors. While men’s basketball rose to success on the national stage, the development of women’s sports was just beginning in the 1970s as Georgetown transitioned to be a coed institution. The women’s basketball program spearheaded the establishment of women’s sports on the Hilltop, playing its first season in 1970. The team made its first appearance on the national stage in the 1992-93 season, just 22 years after the program’s start. With a berth to the Round of Sixteen in the NCAA Tournament, the women’s basketball team excelled on the national level. Since the 1990s, the team has returned to the tournament three consecutive times in the 2009-10, 2010-11 and 2011-12 seasons. The program has also cultivated a variety of professional athletes, including the team’s all-time leading scorer Sugar Rodgers (COL ’13), who led the team during its three consecutive tournament berths. It was a special experience
to be part of the athletic community on the Hilltop and to represent the Blue and Gray on the national stage, Rodgers said in an interview with The Hoya. “The athletes just treat you like family if you are on a team,” Rodgers said in a phone interview with The Hoya. “You play more so for the name on the front than the name on the back.”
‘Why not us?’ — that’s real.” The women’s team similarly strengthened Georgetown’s soccer program, dominating competition in the Big East and competing at the national level in recent years. After its founding in 1991, Head Coach Dave Nolan took charge of the program in 1999, recording seven consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances during his tenure and a trip to the SOCCER SOARS TO NEW HEIGHTS College Cup in 2018. The program has Following the women’s basketball also secured three consecutive Big East team’s rise to success in the past de- tournament wins and two consecutive cade, the men’s soccer program, found- Big East Regular Season titles in the past ed in 1952, has been one of the best- five years. performing teams in recent history. Led Two alumnae have been drafted to by Head Coach Brian Wiese for the past the National Women’s Soccer League, 14 seasons, the team has recorded 10 including Ingrid Wells (COL ’11). After total NCAA Tournament appearances graduation, Wells attended training and has played in two camps with the full national title games, U.S. Women’s Nationnotching the proal Team before pursugram’s first national ing her professional victory this Decemcareer. Wells has exber. The Hoyas have pressed appreciation dominated within the for the athletic proBig East Conference, gram on the Hilltop, nabbing 11 Big East elaborating specificalregular season and ly on her experience conference titles. Six seeing the evolution former players have of the women’s soccer gone on to play proprogram. fessionally in Major “I got to see, I think, League Soccer, includthe biggest time frame ing Dan Gargan (MSB of the evolution of the ’05), a fourth-round program. And that’s draft pick to the 2005 also part of the reason Colorado Rapids. Garwhy I chose to attend MEN’S SOCCER gan expressed treGeorgetown and play HEAD COACH BRIAN WIESE mendous gratitude for that team,” Wells for the athletic prosaid in a phone intergram in his time on the Hilltop. view with The Hoya. “It was an honor and something that She joined the team during the first I still am very proud of,” Gargan said in year the soccer programs were funded a phone interview with The Hoya. “It’s comparably to other Big East teams, such a rich tradition and history to be according to Wells. During her fresha part of the school and also the ath- man year, the team made the nationletic department that I really felt, and al tournament for the first time and I still feel, really grateful that I was a played in the Final Four of the Big piece of it.” East tournament. After the team’s national champion“It was me getting to see both proship last month, the Georgetown men’s grams really take on a new light,” Wells soccer program sees only opportunity said. “I felt like it was a special time to in the future, according to Wiese. be there because not only was I just get“When I came in on my campus in- ting to be a part of maintaining a proterview, the question [Athletic Direc- gram, but also really the growth and, tor Bernard Muir] asks at the end of the like I said, the evolution of it.” interview was, ‘Well, do you think we can do it?’ I don’t know what ‘it’ was ‘THE DECADE OF LEE’ in his head, but for me it was [the NaThe women’s cross-country team sotional Championship]. My response to lidified the notability of the women’s him was ‘I don’t see why not.’ And I athletic program on campus by bringdon’t,” Wiese said in an interview with ing home the second NCAA National The Hoya. “The ‘I don’t see why not,’ the Championship trophy in Georgetown
“I think when your leadership provides the expectation of ‘Well, we should just compete in the Big East’ versus ‘Why can’t we win at a national level,’ it makes a huge difference for how you grow something.”
history in 2011. The win came after the Hoyas defeated 30 other teams, including the 2009 and 2010 national champion Villanova. To date, the women’s cross-country team is the only women’s team at Georgetown to secure a national championship and has continued to dominate throughout the decade. The hiring of Lee Reed, the university’s current athletic director, in 2010 signaled the start of a decade of athletic success at the Hilltop. Wiese sees his team’s success as a product of Reed’s leadership, calling Reed’s 10-year tenure the “decade of Lee.” When Wiese first arrived in 2006, the men’s soccer program was not expected to play competitively beyond the Big East Conference, according to Wiese. Reed has since flipped this narrative. “The ethos of what men’s and women’s soccer could be changed really with [Reed]. He’s always been someone who’s had the vision of ‘Well, how good can we get?’” Wiese said. “I think when your leadership provides the expectation of ‘Well, we should just compete in the Big East’ versus ‘Why can’t we win at a national level,’ it makes a huge difference for how you grow something.” During his tenure, Reed has secured a 10-year multimedia deal with FOX Sports and headed the opening of the Thompson Athletic Center in 2016. He further addressed the university’s infrastructure by renovating Cooper Field and Shaw Field, Reed wrote in an email to the Hoya. Current work is also being done on Povich Field, which has hosted the baseball program since the early 2000s. Despite increasing financial burdens and instability with conference alignment at the start of the decade, the department has continued to push athletic excellence, according to Reed. He recognizes how far the university has come in the last 10 years and looks toward the new decade. “It is hard to predict what intercollegiate athletics will look like in the years ahead. However, we can affirm that we are committed to leveraging all that is good in intercollegiate athletics to complement and expand the mission of our great University,” Reed wrote. “We will do this through our investment in quality people, and demanding excellence from ourselves in all that we seek to achieve. And hopefully, along the way, we will win a few more national championships!”
ILLUSTRATION BY: TARIKA KUMAR AND SAMUEL NELSON/THE HOYA