Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York
Reporter 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
________________________________________________________
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.
Samples of Esquire covers during the Harold Hayes era by George Lois at GeorgeLois.Com
________________________________________________________
IBM representatives trained Reporter staff on the new IBM production system, Spring 1969.
________________________________________________________
From the Scrapbook
Reporter newspaper staff, March 1968, nearly a year prior to the conversion to magazine format, pictured on the old RIT Graphic Arts Research Center web press in downtown Rochester: Publisher Pat Collins, Ed Simon, advertising, Amilda Rockwell, secretary, Mike DeSantis, news editor, Martha Jane Freeto, proof reader, Bob Kiger, photo editor, Dean Dexter, feature editor, Neil Shapiro, managing editor, Phil Fraga, outgoing editor, Peter Beesely, art editor, Grant Hamilton, in-coming editor. The photo commemorates the winning staff of Reporter for taking first place for general excellence in college news reporting in upper New York state that year. Absent: David Folkman, graphic arts director.
End of an Era: Dr. Mark Ellingson announces his retirement as RIT's longtime president in the Board Room with Arthur L. Stern, chairman of the Institute's Board of Trustees. Grant Hamilton and Dean Dexter cover the event, Spring 1969.
Art Director Dave Folkman "buried in comics:" promoting an exhibit of his comic art collection at the old RIT library, downtown Rochester (March, 1966).
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.
_______________________________
________________________________________________________
"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..."
________________________________________________________
No such thing as a 'No Smoking' sign in this office...
Jim Sutherland and Patti Paul discuss a story idea...
________________________________________________________
Whatnot
Iconic radio personality Jean Shepherd with Reporter writer Dean Dexter, Fall 1968, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York. Shepherd is eyeing an article of his, published in that month's Playboy magazine, which made him an even bigger hero to the over-serious young scribbler. Shepherd was gracious enough to autograph the copy with a personal inscription, but Dexter later lost it when he weeded out his collections.
________________________________________________________
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.
Reporter Magazine Editor "Flips Through" Reporter History, February 4, 2011 issue
_________________________________________________________________________________
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
________________________________________________________
Courtesy of David Folkman and Hogan's Alley
_________________________________________________________________________________
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 (aka "Cruiser Bob"), December, 2008 (Photo by Dave Folkman)
________________________________________________________
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.
________________________________________________________
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...
Oh, well...
________________________________________________________
A time of marches, coffee houses and "student rights."
________________________________________________________
Dexter, Shapiro, Inc. took on many controversies
________________________________________________________
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
________________________________________________________
Still, they were good years.
Summer 1968...a couple of optimists ready for action on a Saturday night in
downtown Rochester...hmmm..."youth is wasted on the young," a wise somebody once
said..."Vanity, vanity, all is vanity," wrote the Preacher.
Something, from F. Scott Fitzgerald:
"...and some I have quarreled with and don't see any more...".
Summer Issue 1968, Includes a Look at the "New" Campus
________________________________________________________
*Brick City, April, 1970 - Dean Dexter photo
________________________________________________________
Access today's Reporter Magazine
Reporter Archives in the RIT Digital Library
Return to NH Commentary Home Page
NHCommentary.Com
P.O. Box 706
Concord, NH 03302