October 2006. George talks to Granite Hills High School journalism students about the Mustang Daily, Cal Poly's student newspaper.

George Ramos was never afraid to show his true colors — even in what should have been a very official, professional role as Department Chair of the Cal Poly journalism department. He was a riot. He was sometimes inappropriate. He cursed a lot. But he knew his shit, and he knew it well.

It’s funny, maybe ironic, that I’m sitting down to write a blog post about the death of George Ramos — the very man who taught me how to write obituaries.

But this post isn’t so much an obituary as it is an ode to all George Ramos did to shape me into the person I am today. It’s an ode that I think will resonate with those students who knew him as a professor and editor. So, let’s start at the beginning.

***

My story with George goes back before my college days. Flash to October 2006. I was 17. We were at Cal Poly for a journalism field trip to meet George Ramos, the then-chair of Cal Poly’s journalism department and recipient of three Pulitzer Prizes. The trip was made possible thanks to Claudia Elliott, an editor of small weekly newspaper in my hometown, and former classmate of George’s when they both attended Cal Poly.

I was immediately drawn to George’s enthusiasm about advising The Mustang Daily, Cal Poly’s student newspaper — an enthusiasm that stemmed from his days as an editor in the ’60s. It was more than enthusiasm. He loved what he did. The burning, obsessive kind of love. The kind of love that you wake up for every morning. You could see it in his eyes and hear it in the way he spoke about the newspaper.

The photo above is from the first day I met George. He's wearing his class ring that says both "BS" and "69" (bachelor's of science in 1969). You can see how giddy he gets when talking about The Mustang Daily. Above, he looks so goofy because he's so excited to be sharing his passion with young, eager students.

Before that overcast Saturday morning, I had never considered going to a CSU for college, but I walked out of the Mustang Daily newsroom clutching George’s business card in my hand and picturing myself walking through those halls as a student editor myself.

A few months later, I emailed George and thanked him for taking time out of his weekend to talk to my newspaper staff (I was editor in chief of grizzlygazette.net). I ambushed him with questions about myself potentially attending Cal Poly and getting involved with the paper.

From Lauren to George, Feb. 7, 2011: [...] Thanks to your uplifting spirit and general enthusiasm, I discarded my dream of being a Cal Bear and took a keen interest in becoming a Mustang. I am writing to you just to find out more general information about your journalism program. Do I get to start taking journalism classes as a freshman? How long do I have to wait until I can be a writer for the Mustang Daily? What are the chances that I’d get to work with the online/multimedia aspect of the paper? [...]

He was quick to respond, with very detailed answers. He told me I could get involved as a freshman and told me which classes to take. He was the kind of person who took the time for things like that — anything to help his students. This was just the first of many email exchanges to come.

The day I emailed him to tell him that I got into Cal Poly and would be a student in his journalism department, his response was to the point: “ALRIGHT!!!! CONGRATULATIONS!!!!” (I always loved how his emails always contained either no capitalization or all caps).

His time as department chair at Cal Poly wasn’t all sunshine and smiles, though. George could navigate through court records with his eyes closed, but he definitely didn’t have a Pulitzer in administrative bookkeeping, a large part of what the department chair does. In August 2007, the department announced that George would be stepping down as department chair:

When he took the job, Ramos told Cal Poly Magazine that his No. 1 goal was to get the department accredited again the department lost its accreditation the year before Ramos arrived. In a recent department alumni newsletter, Ramos said accreditation was lost because of inadequate governance, a lack of diversity, and substandard facilities and equipment. He described ways the department was working to address those issues, ranging from new hiring to pushing for a new studio for the campus radio station.

Kara Lynch of the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications said that the school is not listed as accredited in its most recent information, updated for the new school year.

But at the start of the 2008 school year, George kept his role as advisor to the Mustang Daily, and he continued doing what he did best — teaching us how to report.

“I’m still the reporter. I’m still a journalist,” George told me and the rest of his Public Affairs Reporting class on the first day of spring quarter 2009. “I don’t really consider myself an academic.”

He said he doesn’t want his students to see him as a professor, but as an editor. And a ruthless editor he was. He knew how to tear our stories to pieces and tell us when our writing was pure crap. But all his criticisms made us stronger.

George always supported my hated of the Central Valley of California where I grew up. When I got a journalism scholarship for covering women’s issues, he sent me this email:

lauren, this is more evidence that you’re headed for a great career in anything you want to do with your future. i’m personally glad you decided to foresake the san joaquin valley to come to poly. george r.

Like I said, always honest, never afraid to show his true colors. Never afraid to brag about his three Pulitzers or tell you the story of how he’d go door-to-door in East LA looking for sources in some of the most dangerous neighborhoods of Southern California.

Although I respected George immensely for his contribution to three Pulitzer Prizes while he was at the L.A. Times, I was even more impressed by his ability to go out of his comfort zone and embrace the web. It was a move I never expected from him.

“You’ll get away from those damn keyboards and go out and report,” I recall him saying during the first day of his Public Affairs Reporting class. Comments like this weren’t uncommon. He knew the web was important to the changing journalism landscape, but it wasn’t for him — it was for us kids to figure out.

But something in him must have changed when he decided to join the web-only investigative reporting site, Cal Coast News. Before he joined the San Luis Obispo blog team, the website had a reputation of being highly sensational and speculation-based.

George himself often spoke ill of it in the classroom, which is perhaps why it came as such a huge surprised when he joined as an editor. I sent him an email applauding him, saying, “George Ramos at a blog?! I love it!” and encouraging him to make a Twitter and Facebook account. He told me he didn’t know about all that social media stuff, but he saw it as a great opportunity to improve the quality of the blog and learn about new journalism.

If he stuck with it this long, he must have enjoyed it. His no-bullshit approach has only made the blog more credible during his time there

I have tons of other stories to share about George. I’m sure everyone else does too — and please, if you do, feel free to share in the comments. But the most important thing to know is that though he put on a tough face, he really and truly cared about his students. He wanted us to succeed and he supported our hopes and dreams.

I salute you, Mr. Ramos, for all you taught me. If I hadn’t met you five years ago, I probably wouldn’t have gone to Cal Poly. I don’t know who I’d be if your colorful personality wasn’t a part of my life. George will live on through his words and in the hearts of those who had the honor of knowing him.

What people are saying about George’s passing

Below I’ve collected response from social media about George’s life and his impact.

“The most close minded journalists are the ones that just graduated.” – Rob Curley #acpphx

(Full audio above from CICM aka Bryan Murley).

At first, I was offended. Naturally, I would be. I just graduated college two months ago.

But then I took a step back and thought about all my peers who graduated around the same time as me and let out a disappointed sigh. He’s right. Here’s why.

They are unattached from the real world

Although college journalists probably have greater capacity to open their minds and learn new skills, that capacity hasn’t been tested because they’re not dabbling in real-world layoffs. They’re not watching their life-long co-workers be fired left and right, watching their salaries decline or wondering every day whether they’ll be the next to be laid off. College journalists read about the layoffs — if they’re staying up with industry news — but ultimately, college newsrooms are a huge, deceitful bubble of safety (for now).

For those students working at internships, the positions are usually temporary or unpaid anyway, so the fear of losing a job or being laid off is practically non-existent. The only “reality” they have to go off is hearing newsroom horror stories from others.

Unattachment from the real world is important in the context of close-mindedness because there’s no perspective to reference in terms of impact. It’s harder to realize the true state of the industry when you’re not living and breathing it.

The nature of college education leads to a predisposition of close-mindedness

At least at the University from which I graduated, many of the professors left the journalism industry before the Internet even existed. Professors are even more unattached from the real world than their students are because they just don’t get the nature of the Internet or technology. In an environment where students are supposed to be learning, growing and experimenting, closed-mindedness of incapable professors inhibits such growth and said close-mindedness translates to students.

Now, I don’t mean to generalize. I know that there are professors out there who are taking the extra effort to re-train, stay up-to-date on industry standards and be as tech-savvy as humanly possible. But don’t kid yourselves, there are only a very select handful of those types in the journalism world.

I appreciate my education, but I rushed through my 4-year University in 2.5 years for a reason — I found little value in it. I wanted to dig into the real world. I wanted to really live and learn through experience. In college, even my journalism classes, were bubble tests and essays.

So what I mean by “the nature of college education leads to closed-mindedness” is this: You can’t have an open mind if you’re locked into a system of teaching based on text books, standardized tests and homework. At least not in the journalism world. How can students be expected to have an open mind post-graduation when their pre-graduation experiences did not allow for any type of experimentation, critical problem solving, open discussion and execution of problems in journalism? How can students be expected to have an open mind post-graduation when their professors keep the same curriculum for decades, teaching students lessons about writing for newspapers instead of teaching about the changing art of story-telling and information gathering and how it’s intricately intertwined with the business and development aspects of the web?

Recent college graduates aren’t going to show up in a newsroom with an open mind and big ideas because many of them are used to being spoon-fed assignments and structure. The real world isn’t like that.

The good news: It’s fixable

I’m not trying to paint myself as the all-knowing college godsend. I was nothing special in college. But I was able to identify the ignorance that existed within my journalism department when no one else seemed to be aware of it.

The students aren’t to blame. Once placed in a situation where they’re allowed to openly collaborate and brainstorm without restrictions of the classroom to hold them back, students and grads are capable of accomplishing big things. They just need to be exposed to that opportunity many times before graduating so that it’s natural post-graduation.

Now more than ever, students need to be teaching themselves and each other. If they decide to stay in college and go the standardized route, then they need to join forces, start independent student blogs, collaborate with other schools. Professors need to play a role in facilitating this kind of interaction and ensuring that it’s appreciated and encouraged at the collegiate level — even offer credits or scholarship money for students who are truly dedicated to experimentation and innovation outside (or better yet, inside) the classroom. The more that professors become involved in encouraging and overseeing innovative student projects, the better they’ll be able to carry those projects on over the years and students cycle in and out of college. Ideally, progress on such projects could be tracked through blog or wiki as a reference for future students and professors.

So, thanks Rob Curley, for calling out college education. And now, brave professors and students… step up.

A 39-page handbook for incoming staff members. The booklet was designed in InDesign.

1. Develop a better system for sending out the daily e-mail edition. We’re currently using feedburner, which we find to be inconsistent and ugly. We want something customizable that we can send out during times of breaking news. It will also include ad spots ($$$ = good!)
    
2. Lay the foundations for a community wiki. The wiki will allow users to contribute information they have about on-going issues on campus, clubs, etc. I have no idea how it will be organized or the scope of our topics, but we’ll start with topics we’re covering, then expand to have a page for all clubs, organizations, administrators, etc.�
    
3. Set up a community-generated calendar. Time and time again we get complaints from students about our lack of coverage on certain events. Everyone knows we can’t cover it all, though. But that doesn’t mean those events aren’t important.  A community-generated calendar would be a resource for all students and a way for community members to promote themselves. Because it will surely be a populare page, it also means much advertising potential. (e.g. This calendar is sponsored by _____.)
    
4. Create an easy system for submitting news tips. This could easily be done using a Google form (through Google docs) or a WordPress plugin. When setting this up, we could also do a form for submitting letters to the editor. �
    
5. Make prettier landing pages. Although our front page is bomb (I’m not going to be modest ), our news, sports, opinion, arts and multimedia pages are boring as ever. Those pages were a quick fix when the site launched, but I want to redesign them to have a main, featured story and maybe a secondary story, then the rest listed below. It needs structure.�
    
6. A page of aggregated tweets. Although it might be tough working with the Twitter API (thank goodness I’m hiring a web developer), it would be really cool to experiment with a page called “voices on the web” or “community tweets” (or probably something catchier) that agreggates tweets with the words “Cal Poly,” #calpoly, #poly, #slo, SLO, San Luis Obispo, etc. 

At Cal Poly, we’re adding a “new media” track to our journalism department (as a supplement to broadcast, editorial and public relations). But in an economic crunch when money and resources are low, we shouldn’t create a new track– we should revamp existing tracks. 

Current situation:

There is one “new media” class in our entire journalism department: applied multimedia reporting, JOUR 410. I put “new media” in quotes because that phrase bugs me. It’s not really new anymore, is it? That already puts us behind the curve when we’re thinking of it as something new and emerging. It needs to be integrated. It needs to be like breathing. When it’s “new,” it’s scary. Students don’t like scary.

This solitary multimedia class is not a required course; it’s an elective class open to all tracks within the journalism major. It’s taught by the ONE tech-savvy professor in our department, our savior, Brady Teufel. 

From blogging to podcasting to soundslides to flash to video editing to HMTL to content management systems, students are expected to learn it all in one 10-week session. Each of those topics separately could fill a cirriculum for their own separate 10 week courses, so you can imagine how rushed it is. That’s not the way to learn. You can’t edit one 30-second video and expect to be a pro. But when we only have one professor and one class dedicated to multimedia– what other options do we have?

To give you a feel for a few classes that are required for all journalism majors: writing for the media, mass media in a multicultural society, mass media law, visual communication, journalism ethics

Print concentrations: copy editing, public affairs reporting, feature writing, advanced newspaper reporting

Broadcast concentrations: Broadcast news, broadcast announcing and editing, ENG reporting, advanced radio reporting, advanced TV reporting

Public relations concentrations: Intro to public relations, advanced public relations writing, public relations campaigns, advanced public relations practice

If our department really wants to take a proactive “new media” approach to prepare its students for the world ahead –while being economical and saving money/resources — this is how it should be done:

1. Scrap print as a track

Although the technical name for the track is “news editorial,” internally, it’s a print track. Instead, it should be called the multimedia concentration, although it would be ok to maintain a few print elements. Why scrap it? Because there is no such thing as a purely print publication (and if there is, it’s sure to go bankrupt soon). 

For example, students are required to take a feature writing class with a basis in writing 2,500 word features. For students who want to go into magazine writing, it’s great — but it should be an elective. A required class that could replace it would be a class about newswriting for the Web, since it will be valuable to every concentration.

The curriculum for a web-writing class could include:

• Blogging
• Tagging posts/articles
• Using keywords
• Hyperlinking
• Writing effective headlines
• Effective, web-based research (RSS feeds to find story ideas)
• Engaging in discussion with your readers
• Crowdsourcing via social networks to find sources
• Commenting on other blogs/drawing readership

…just to name a few.

2. Make video a must for all concentrations
Combining talent and resources with the broadcast track, the multimedia track should require students learn how to shoot and edit video. In addition, broadcast students should know how to get their video on the web, since most of them have the editing/shooting down, but are clueless about what a flash player is. PR students need to take a video shooting/editing class too– because what better way to represent a client than to do something viral on YouTube? The concepts apply across all three concentrations. 

Structure for the video class:

• Video shooting basics
• Coordinating teams to shoot video
• Video editing (Final Cut)
• TV broadcasting basics
• Exporting/uploading video to the Web
• Incorporating video with 3rd parties (Google Maps, timelines, etc.)

3. Restructure JOUR 410 (Applied multimedia reporting)
This class, which currently touches briefly on many facets of new media, could be more focused. Under the current circumstances, this cannot happen, but if we split it up among professors, it can work. With video taught in a broadcast class, JOUR 410 can focus on three basic topics:

1. Slideshows/Soundslides
2. Podcasting
3. Interactivity: Livestreaming/Live chats