Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York
Reporter Weekly Newspaper and Magazine, 1967-1971
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. First magazine cover photo by Bob Kiger.
*Grant Hamilton looks back 40 years for RIT University Magazine
Read this issue of the old newspaper here.
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 (yearbook) editor. Esquire Goes to Vietnam.
Read Neil Shapiro's story on Pages 8 and 9 in the February 7, 1969 issue here
Hayes was on campus to deliver a lecture on how magazines attempt to use "controlled shock," as a strategy to build readership and circulation. The celebrated editor predicted 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. Harold Hayes obituary, The New York Times.
From left (clockwise): Hayes with cigarette and microphone, Blumenthal, Dexter, Tom Doughtry, Dave Folkman, Shapiro, Hamilton.
The ever Present ciggie....
Samples of Esquire covers during the Harold Hayes era by George Lois at GeorgeLois.Com
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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: Bottom: Publisher Pat Collins, Incoming Editor Grant Hamilton. Second Row: Ed Simon, advertising, Amilda Rockwell, secretary, Bob Kiger, phto editor with foot on rail, Peter Beesely, seated. Stading: Mike DeSantis, ews editor, Martha Jane Freeto, proof reader, Dean Dexter, feature editor, Neil Shapiro, managing editor, Phil Fraga, outgoing editor. Absent: David Folkman, graphic arts director. 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
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 of the student run Reporter Magazine 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).
Reporter Art Director Dave Folkman with RIT yearbook editor Ann Richardson by the story board, Reporter basement offices, old downtown campus, 1967
RIT Reporter table, Freshman Orientation 1967, featuring larger than life wood cut-out figures of Dave Folkman cartoon characters "Lord Bupkis" and "Indian." Pictured are Reporter staff members Grant Hamilton, Folkman, Bob Kudola, and Peter Beesely, seated.
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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, November 1967, 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.
Access Dean Dexter's blog here.
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Among the Celebrated Reporter Alumni of this Period...
Science Fiction Author, Magazine Editor, and Online Forum Pioneer Neil Shapiro
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. Link to Shapiro SF bibliography here.
Reporter Magazine Editor "Flips Through" Reporter History, February 4, 2011 issue
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Publisher, Art Director and Cartoon Archivist/Historian Dave Folkman
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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Film-maker, Video Pioneer, and Down-hill Bike Entrepreneur Bob Kiger
Bob
Kiger, with daughter Randi, Rochester, New York, August, 1969. Photo editor
and later editor-in-chief, Kiger was a driving force behind the transition of
Reporter from the newspaper to magazine format. Bob later went on to
groundbreaking successes in film-making, video production and bicycle touring.
Bob is credited with coining the word "videography" in the early 1970s, and
founded a downhill bicycle touring company in Hawaii, which later gained the
sport worldwide popularity.
According to one of his websites:
"Kiger formed the original "Videography Company" in early 1973...The company produced a wide variety of TV commercials, documentaries, early music videos, designed the production of "Barney Miller" for ABC network and contributed to the production of several feature and made for TV movies, winning numerous Monitor Awards and at least one Clio nomination up until1982...In the winter of 1982, while brainstorming marketing ideas for his business, Kiger decided to legally adopt the nickname "Cruiser Bob" and simultaneously dreamed up the idea for a bicycle tour down Maui's 10,000 foot volcano [Haleakala]. This new industry took off like a shot and within a year the full assets of "Cruiser Bob's" were devoted to bringing people down "the steepest highway on Earth" on bicycles. To date Maui's downhill bicycle industry has earned over $100,000,000 with no end in site. It was also the inspiration for the utilization of ski lifts for summer mountain bicycling at Mammoth Mountain and later at ski slopes around the world.
"He regularly maintains websites at: http://www.cruiserbob.com - http://www.videographyblog.com - http://www.vidiots.us and is now engaged in an online incubator for young people to create "crazy new businesses" that benefit modern humans."
Longtime pals Dave Folkman and Bob Kiger, Los Angeles, 1976
(Photo by Peter Champagne)
Bob Kiger directing Reagan and Ford, 1979
Bob Kiger (aka "Cruiser Bob"), December, 2008 (Photo by Dave Folkman)
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Back to the Scrapbook
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. In but two years, notice how the sportscoats and neckwear went away!
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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The Day Reporter Magazine Sponsored a Miss Underwater Contest
(i.e., which RIT co-ed would photograph best while swimming both above and underwater? It was before the days of 'Political Correctness,' of course...February 8, 1969)
Farewell to the Edith Woodward Memorial Pool, December 5, 2008 Edition, ReporterOnline
Read the original article in the February 14, 1969 issue here
Read about WHO WON on Page 12, February 21, 1969 issue here
Bob Kiger, directing the action...(whole thing his idea ?!)
Oh, well...
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A time of marches, coffee houses and "student rights."
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Mad Men?
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Access the then-controversial abortion cover and article by Cornell's Dr. Roger A. Morse, January 31, 1969 issue, here
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...At left, on this May 1970 cover designed by Art Terry, variously situated: Institute President Dr. Paul Miller (upper left corner), School of Photography Director, Dr. William Shoemaker (center middle right); Sunny Redmond (Bottom left corner, later a Ford model, below*), Event Organizer Meredith Gould (center bottom).
*Sunny
Redmond, October 1971 Seventeen Cover
Steve Lawrence Photographer
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Good years.
Summer 1968...a couple of optimists ready for "action" on a Saturday night in downtown Rochester.
"Well many are dead, and some I have quarreled with and don't see anymore. But I have never cared for any men as much as for these who felt the first springs when I did, and saw death ahead, and were reprieved—and who now walk the long stormy summer. It is a generation staunch by inheritance, sophisticated by fact—and rather deeply wise." - F. Scott Fitzgerald
*RIT Brick City, Henrietta, NY, April, 1970 - Dean Dexter photo, all rights reserved.
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ADDENDUM, 2018
Harlan Ellison, Volatile Legend of Science Fiction, Dies at 84
From a Face Book Post June 28, 2018
My best friend in college, Neil Shapiro, lived with this guy for awhile in LA. Ellison would take into his home and mentor talented young writers, and Neil was one of the best. Neil invited him to our school to be part of a science fiction forum he put together, which included Annie McCaffrey (who was moving to Scotland) and Arthur C. Clarke, of all people. Friends of Neil's. Since I didn't read science fiction, I had no idea who these people were or what I was getting into. We hung out that weekend mainly with Ellison, however, because Neil and he were such buddies. I will say this, of all the people I've ever met, Ellison who did not drink, smoke or do drugs (at least at that time), was the most extraordinary, unique, flamboyant, outrageous, creatively profane high-octane personality I have ever met...to this day. What a pleasure, what a privilege. Thank you, Neil. – Dean Dexter
From a Face a Book Post June 29, 2018
Hard for me to share this information. Harlan and I met at the very first Clarion Writer's Conference -- a writing school for SF and Fantasy. One of our teachers was Harlan. He was one of the most exciting individuals I have met in my life. I was flattered when he offered to have me stay on the Coast with him for a couple weeks to meet some other authors and to have a better understanding of what I was getting into. Harlan taught me in those weeks (about a month and a half) many things. I think the most important was to first recognize the truth and then to speak the truth no matter how much trouble you might get into. And, to toss in a few swear words and ripely descriptive language if at all possible. He also taught me to write in a manner that got immediately to the heart of whatever the issue might be and not to be concerned with stylistic constraints. It worked for a while. I published two SF novels and about 30 short stories in publications like Fantasy and SF, Galaxy, IF, Vertex and others. One day I woke up and noticed my family was starving to death. So, I turned to other kinds of writing that people actually would pay money for. At any rate, I know I became somewhat of a disappointment to him and our friendship did not last. But in my life I have very often thought of him, and our days when he was my main teacher and even role model. Somehow, although he was never there wherever there might be, he was in some ways always with me. I miss him. He taught me so damn much. Not how to make paragraphs though. – Neil Shapiro
Access today's RIT Reporter
Reporter
Archives at the RIT Digital Library (Some missing)
Access Dean Dexter's blog here.
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