From time to time, the Washington Post attempts to provide good hyper-local coverage of D.C.—and they almost always fail stupendously. Recently, the Post found a new, similarly out-of-their-purview beat to epically fail at: college campuses.

Their college news blog, Campus Overload, features either tame rehashes of mildly interesting stories from campuses all over the country, or completely inane original stories. Par exemple, within the past week, Campus Overload offered readers such gems as this “hilarious video,” “Spring Breaking It Down,” and a totally vapid interview with Georgetown University Student Association President Calen Angert (MSB ‘11).

Vox has no idea what the point of this interview—and its thought-provoking questions, like, “What’s allowed and not allowed on your Facebook profile?” and “When’s the last time you pulled an all-nighter?”—was supposed to be. To show readers how the sleepless, social-networking other side lives?

To edify student government leaders on other campuses?:

[Post]: What advice do you have for students on other campuses who are launching student government campaigns?

[Angert]: Make sure your heart and head are in the right place, and tell the truth.

[Post]: What’s the best way to get to know your fellow student government members?

[Angert]: E-mail them or call them. Anyone I know who is involved with student government would love to meet and talk about current issues and future initiatives.

To show off the Post’s incredibly high editing standards, where “haha” is a word?:

[Post]: How much sleep do you usually get?

[Angert]: Too little, haha. I’m fully operable on 4 hours — anything less and my productivity suffers.

Beats us. Even the interview’s more substantive questions, about funding reform, mystify us. Who cares to read about that who isn’t a Georgetown student? And if some reform-minded soul was interested, why would they turn to the Post for their nuance-free, after-the-jump coverage of it?

Oh well. At least now we know what Angert’s favorite Georgetown bar is (Saloun), what his favorite admissions essay was, and what he wants to do when he grows up.

Complaining about Monday classes? Well, Vox doesn’t blame you, but the D.C. media and their readers are complaining about you.

That’s right, upon hearing about Georgetown’s earnest Facebook efforts to protest the administration’s decision to bag our Presidents’ Day holiday, NBC Washington and Wonkette commenced with the mocking.

“Cranky Georgetown Students Protest Monday Classes; Georgetown ruins snow days. And won’t someone PLEASE think of the founding fathers?” was the headline of NBC’s Carissa DiMargo’s stinging brief about our Facebook group and general displeasure over the snow day.”

“We get it, kiddos — a lot of you had already made travel plans,” she writes. “But let’s be honest. Are you reeeeally trying to ‘Protect Our National Holiday!’ as the name of the group suggests?

“Yep, won’t someone just think of the founding fathers for a change? The founding fathers WANT these students to have off from class! Jeez!”

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Saxaspeak, Vox’s old blogging buddy, is back. This time, though, it’s called, Saxaspeak: The Talk of the Hilltop, and it’s run by the Hoya.

The old Saxaspeak collapsed shortly after it became a mere repository of Georgetown Google Alerts. Will this Saxaspeak suffer the same fate? Editor-in-Chief Marissa Amendolia and Online Editor Meghan Bartels say no, in a blog post:

Saxaspeak will provide more regular and, occasionally, more casual coverage of the events and trends that affect Georgetown students….it will augment our customary high-quality and in-depth coverage with shorter, more frequent pieces to keep up with the pace of life at Georgetown. The blog is also designed to simplify the search for information by collecting relevant news links in one place.

Bartels told Vox that The Hoya chose the Saxaspeak name because they thought it was suitable, and because of name recognition among older students.

Although Bartels is currently the only blogger on the Hoya’s Saxaspeak staff, she said she expects to create her own blogging staff separate from the paper soon.

Well, are you?

Georgetown Dish, the Georgetown neighborhood’s news and gossip website, launched last month. Most of it caters to Tiger Woods obsessives and the old-enough-to-be-your-grandparents set, but at least one column on the site could interest Georgetown students: Town/Gown, written by Georgetown junior Katherine Duncan (COL ‘11).

For her debut column, Duncan explains Gtown Genpop, a term her friends on the track team came up with. Who qualifies as Gtown Genpop? Perhaps everyone who isn’t on the track team:

It captures the various different stereotypical groups on the Georgetown campus—the overzealous SFS (School of Foreign Service)/IPOL (International Politics), students, the “bro” types (think loud, obnoxious, beer-bonging, etc.), the privileged preppy boarding school New-Englanders, etc. Essentially, the “Jane and Jack Hoya” typecast for which Georgetown is known….Let’s expand these types by adding “Georgetown students within the greater Georgetown community.”

It doesn’t make sense, but it’s better shorthand than Joe and Jane Hoya.

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Not long for this world

HoyaTalk was abuzz last week when The Washington Times announced it was cutting its local news, sports, and feature content, and shifting to a free distribution model. For Georgetown fans on the site, this meant that the arguably best source of off-campus Hoya basketball coverage was on the chopping block.

Sadly, Barker Davis (CAS ’94), who has covered the Hoyas in the Times for twelve of the last fifteen seasons in addition to other sports, confirmed for Vox that he will indeed be out of the college basketball business by early next year.

“As of Feb. 2 at the absolute latest, the Times won’t be covering ANY local sports, not Redskins, Caps, Terps, Hoyas — NADA,” he wrote in an e-mail. “They are blowing up the sports department and I understand nearly half of all editorial staff and content. I’m already looking at how much more education I need to teach English Lit and coach hoops in public HS.”

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A mockup of The Georgetown Dish, less tabloid-y than its Huffington muse

Ask Georgetown resident Beth Solomon what she envisions for The Georgetown Dish and she’ll tell you she’s looking to create “a cross between a local Huffington Post and Washington Life Magazine.” Specifically, on December 16, she and her partners will launch a website that’ll provide you with all the photos and coverage of Georgetown social events, aggregated and original neighborhood news content, and local listings you’ll ever need.

The scope of the site sounds pretty ambitious. Solomon, a former reporter and speechwriter and current communications consultant, said The Georgetown Dish will be divided into three verticals:  ”The Scene” will cover social events in Georgetown. (She said the party she attended at Cafe Milano on Sunday for Kathleen Kennedy would be a good candidate for coverage).

“The Dish,” for which she already has several columnists lined up, will be for news and commentary, and “The Scoop” will have “informational and commercial listings,” like classifieds, sports schedules, and restaurant specials. Solomon also anticipates getting restaurant reviews from contributors and aggregating coverage “that’s already out there.”

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For a long time, the Georgetown neighborhood blogging scene has been confined to us and Georgetown Metropolitan, but it looks like we’ve got new company: The Georgetowner’s Editor at Large Dave Roffman has recently begun blogging at Georgetown Week.

Given The Georgetowner’s focus on the social scene, it’s not surprising that Georgetown Week is largely focused mostly on neighborhood events (think of it as sort of like the Saxa Speak for the adult set).  The blog also offers some neighborhood news coverage, though, recently featuring a summary of the latest ANC meeting, an analysis of the state of Georgetown’s trolley tracks, and a rundown of the Citzen’s Association of Georgetown meeting.

As always, Vox is happy to have more blogging company!

Via Georgetown Metropolitan.

WWCD: What Would Carrie Do?

When I wrote about Georgetown’s sex and relationships columns in the paper a few weeks ago, I wasn’t too impressed by The Hoya’s current sex scribe, Colleen Leahey (COL ‘11).  Apparently I’m in good company: yesterday The Washington City Paper’s The Sexist blog surveyed the sex columns currently running in local student papers and ranked them on how progressive they are—and The Hoya’s came in last.

According to The Sexist, the city’s most progressive sex column can be found in the American University Eagle.  Co-written by three anonymous authors, the column has been a bit of a mixed bag, with high highs (tackling anal sex in an enlightened way) and low lows (the inaugural column kicked off with a disturbing date rape scenario).  But the Sexist found enough promise in the column-writing threesome to give them a progressive score of seven.

Coming in second was the GW Hatchet’s sex column.  The Hatchet switches off between an anonymous male writer and an anonymous female writer, and tends to neglect the LGBTQ perspective, according to the Sexist, earning them a six on the progressive scale.

The Sexist gave Leahey props for using her real name and acknowledged the challenges inherent in writing a column for a relatively conservative paper where “vulgarity” is frowned upon, but took her to task for directing her columns at “desperate” heterosexual females.  Ultimately, Leahey and The Hoya walked away with just four progressive points.

Promising news for print journalism fans: although the Collegiate Readership Program, which provided free newspapers on campus, was suspended this year due to lack of funding, there are two replacement offers on the table.

Members of GUSA, the Corp, and Interhall have been working to restore free papers to campus. According to Will Cousino (SFS ‘12) of Interhall, both options would provide roughly half as many papers as last year at about half the cost.

The first offer came from the New York Times and would include 200 copies of the Times and no other papers. USA Today, which sponsored last year’s program, also made an offer late last week that would include USA Today, the Washington Post and the Times.

Cousino and GUSA Vice President Jason Kluger (MSB ‘11) will sit down next Monday to discuss which plan they, along with Corp CFO Phil Goodman (SFS ‘10) and GUSA President Calen Angert (MSB ‘11), would like to pursue.

Both offers are currently at $12,000, according to Angert and Kluger. But they’re hoping to haggle them down.

“We’d love to start a bidding war. That would be ideal,” Angert said.

“As for distribution locations, last year we had four and this year they would probably be reduced to three or two,” Cousino said. “The one we’re pretty sure we’d cut would be the site at Uncommon Grounds.”

USA Today collected data about how many papers were picked up at what location, according to Cousino. On average, 134 papers a day were picked up in Leo’s, 133 in Red Square, 105 in Alumni Square, and 88 at Uncommon Grounds, he said.

“Once we pick a program, all the focus will be on raising the funds to get it and keep it sustainable,” Kluger said.

Last year, the Collegiate Readership Program was sponsored by five organizations, donating $5,000 each. Those organizations were GUSA, the Corp, Interhall, the Senior Vice President’s Office, and the Provost’s Office.

The Corp and GUSA are the only confirmed sponsors of the free newspaper program so far, according to Angert. The students are also hoping to get funding from the Dean of the MSB, among other sources.

Photo by Sam Sweeney.

Click image to enlarge, or download the PDF

There are elegant townhouses aplenty in Georgetown, but have you ever wondered who exactly our influential neighbors residing in the multimillion dollar abodes are?

Lucky for you, this week’s issue of The Georgetowner features a two-page spread (above) showing where some of the most important and influential Georgetown residents live. Though the map is a bit hard to read, the list of VIPs is quite impressive, consisting mostly of politicians, influential journalists, and other Washington heavyweights.

John Kerry and Teresa Hines and New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd show up on N Street, while Senator Arlen Spector and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi appear down near K Street. Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn, two former Washington Post editors, live on 30th Street, just a block away from famous Watergate journalist and author Bob Woodward.

The wide world of sports is represented, too—Paul Tagliabue, former NFL commissioner (and current chair of Georgetown’s Board of Directors), and Mark and Judy Lerner, owners of the Washington Nationals, live in Hillandale and by the waterfront, respectively. The rest of the list is rounded off by a mixture of television and print journalists, White House advisors, and philanthropists.

It’s a wonderful politically powerful day in the neighborhood!