John Kovalic

Campus Desk
Series Pitch of the Month
Credits

dramasystem layout
writer/designer/ Cathriona Tobin
producer
Robin D. Laws based on a layout
theme by
series pitch Christian Knutsson
author
John Kovalic proofreader
Craig Hargreaves
illustration
Jonathan Wyke

Thanks to our Kickstarter backers, without whom this would not be possible.

© 2014 PELGRANE PRESS LTD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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Campus Desk
—John Kovalic

Nutshell couple of dollars an hour, once you do the math.

Staff at the Daily Forward, the student Reporting three or four stories a week makes a
newspaper of Wisconsin State University, figure difference in a student’s life.
out life, love, and burying the lede. Does your game take place on the reporter,
editorial, or desk level (one editor and a team
Characters of reporters)? Are you competing with other
Wisconsin State University is a sprawling desks, or against each other, on the same desk?
campus of 50,000 students, a microcosm of Much of the staff chose the Forward out of
society—albeit a young, untested one—located pride in its status as the oldest continuously-
in the state capital, Madison. Unique among published student newspaper in the United
such colleges, it has two competing daily student States, and for its stridently left-leaning editorial
newspapers: the storied, long-lived, yet now stance. The Badger Observer, still seen as a
financially struggling Daily Forward; and its shallower, less sophisticated publication is
competitor, the younger, independent Badger growing—making a profit even—leading to a
Observer. bunker mentality at the Forward.
Students of various levels, from the editor Still, camaraderie unites the staff, despite
in chief and managing editor on down, run the competition between reporters, to see which
Forward. Every semester, new staff members writer, and which desk, can get the coveted
are elected to fill the newsroom’s hierarchy of Above-the-Fold Page One story, and who will be
editorial positions: elected as desk editors for next semester.
• Editor in Chief and Managing Editor Are you working for the experience? For
• Campus Desk the money, which can be enough for three or
• City Desk four extra meals per week (if not three or four
• Arts Desk six-packs)? Or are you simply a Journalism
• Editorial Desk major who needs the few extra credits and
• Sports Desk clips working at the Forward provides?
• Graphics and Layout Department Add to this mix the usual college student
• Photo Department concerns—classes, exams, grade-point
• Business Department averages, hormonally-charged relationships,
• Copy Desk experimentation in various forms, drugs and
• Multimedia and Social Media Department alcohol, late-night sessions, and the ever-
Editors and reporters are not paid much, present cash shortages—and the staff of the
but they are paid. Funding comes in from the Daily Forward may have as much to learn about
University, but under continuous threat of themselves as they do about journalism.
budget cuts. Still, what little money there is Though all ostensibly work for the good of
remains important to the staff, most of whom the paper, rivalry simmers between the Campus
live off of student loans, and sell the occasional Desk, covering University matters, and the City
pint of plasma. Reporters get $15 per story—$7 Desk, covering events outside the school—
more than the Badger Observer pays. And which can sometimes spill onto campus. The
editors make a whopping $50 a week, or a Business Department, staffed mostly by frat and

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sorority members from the Business School, • Hot-shot writer who’s getting all the
frequently clashes with Editorial, as the paper’s scoops, but could be playing fast and
brash political stances drive away precious loose with journalistic ethics. How do you
advertisers. Graphics and Photo boast awards score all those connections?
and egos aplenty. The Sports Desk, covering • Small-town transplant, a fish out of
Wisconsin State’s big-buck athletics programs, water on the sprawling state university
get treated as ridiculous, chest-thumping campus. Beloved by the staff, or the butt
wannabe jocks by certain of the Forward’s self- of all the jokes?
serious writers. • Fraternity or sorority member at the Daily
Do the various departments respect, or Forward staff only for the academic credits.
merely tolerate, each other? Do staffers play You’re six credits away from graduation,
well with others? And has anyone noticed that but if the paper’s radical editorial stance
everyone in the Business Department is totally loses any more advertisers . . .
hot, and pretty much out of their league? • Hunter S. Thompson wannabe, brilliant
Journalism runs by a code of ethics, but but unreliable, who took Fear and
the frosh who show up at the paper’s doorway, Loathing in Las Vegas a little too seriously.
year in and year out, don’t know the rules. Especially the mescaline parts.
Boundaries are new, as is accountability. That • Desperate hanger-on with no discernible
comic strip you decided to run just might have writing talent whatsoever. Are you
the entire campus protesting outside the office tolerated because an editor has a crush on
later in the afternoon. A poorly-chosen phrase you? Or is there a real spark of talent in
in an article or editorial could see a boycott, there, waiting to get out?
either by readers or, worse, key advertisers. • Insecure graphics artist who believes in
Nobody wants to be brought up in front of the the craft, but not in yourself. Sometimes
paper’s board of directors, faculty members with this comes out a bit too painfully in your
little use for student excuses. daily comic strip, “Mild Life.”
Still, there’s a golden ring to be grabbed, if • Punk editorial cartoonist angry,
you work hard enough, and are lucky enough: confident, and prolific, one of the
not merely getting above the fold on page one, highest-profile staffers. Being in one of
not only beating the Badger Observer to a story, the campus’s hottest garage bands doesn’t
possibly even occasionally scooping Madison’s hurt, either.
city daily paper, The Capital City Journal. There • Wise-cracking center of attention,
is the desk editorship. Every semester, it goes to a master of the pithy comeback, who has all
candidate elected by the full staff. the talent in the world but lacks discipline
Beyond that? Maybe, just maybe, someone at and direction. With expulsion looming,
the Capital City Journal notices your work, and do you keep on skipping classes to hang
maybe you can freelance for them—for $100 per out at the Forward?
story and a byline that actually means something • Too-trusting freshman, who believes
on a resume. everyone is honest, and should be taken
But dammit, there’s that test to study for first. at their word. Especially the people being
And MGMT will be playing on State Street. And interviewed for that big story . . .
boy, beer tastes really good after donating a pint • Journalism School Senior, book-
of plasma. And the clinic still hasn’t gotten the smart, but without a single byline as
results back from that pregnancy test . . . final semester approaches, stepping into
the Daily Forward’s office for the first
Characters time with eighteen weeks to go until
Characters can be reporters, editors, or other graduation, desperate for résumé clips.
staffers, all 18, 19, or 20-somethings. They work • Junior who’s been at the paper for three
for any desk or department. Pick sex and sexual years, and is starting to score freelance
orientation as needed. assignments from the Capital City Journal.

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Now on the cusp of the real world, and since the City Journal last carried your
semi-real money, how do other cast byline.
members treat your change of status?
• Jock who didn’t make the football team, Themes
and now is the gentle stoner of the • Yourself 101: Most of the kids coming
newsroom, possibly paying your way through the doors of the Daily Forward
through college by selling weed to others. at the start of every semester are wide-
Still, a damn fine photographer. eyed and naïve. They’ve been editors and
• Rich Kid, who never has to struggle to reporters at high school papers that came
make ends meet, and is resented by some out once every couple of weeks, under
on staff who do. the strict and steady guidance of an adult
• Defector: A reporter from the Badger teacher advisor. Now they’re about to get
Observer, who ostensibly switched sides thrown into a lion’s den, with no safety
because of the Daily Forward’s slightly net. This is a journey from doubt and
better pay. You’re talented, but can you be insecurity, to graduation and a job—and
trusted? a life—in the real world. Before they can
• True Believer, spending most of your trust anything else, they have to trust
time at the Daily Forward, dedicated to themselves, their skills, and their instincts.
the paper and to the cause of advocacy Do you have what it takes? Do you even
journalism. Edgy and on the verge of know what it takes?
burning out. Always exhausted, but the • Others 101: Who are your friends?
cause must go on! Who are your enemies? Who are your
• Cool Kid: Editor, reporter, photographer, frenemies? A campus newspaper can
or music writer, everyone wants to be get as cliquey as a high school cafeteria.
around the Cool Kid, who appears to have Rich kids might not trust the poor kids.
it all figured out. But are appearances Reporters don’t trust each other. Nobody
deceiving? trusts the business staff. Editors can
• Nerd: Long gone are the days when stories smooth things over so that goddamned
were printed out and pasted up in the deadlines are met. But they can’t do a
backshop. You’re the computer genius thing about late-teenage angst running
every newsroom needs. How far do your rampant in the Forward offices.
skills go, though? And do you only use The Daily Forward isn’t the only link
them for good, or . . . between cast members. Are some
• Loner: A solitary figure, far older than roommates? Classmates? High school
the rest of the staff, who claims to have sweethearts? Lovers? Do they live in the
covered the fall of the Berlin Wall, dorms or off-campus? What other cliques
on location, for the Forward. There’s and sub-cliques form in the offices of the
something not quite right with you, but so country’s oldest continually published
far nobody can put their finger on it. student newspaper?
• Legend: the kid with so much talent, you • Mistakes 101: Some kids are savvier than
started freelancing for Capital City Journal then others, at the start of the semester.
in your sophomore year. Now a couple And eventually the veterans help the
years older, you still occasionally hang stragglers out. But there will be many
around at the none-too-pricey Black Bear mistakes in these first stories the newbies
Lounge and drink (and drink, and drink) file . . . and also in their lives.
with old Daily Forward chums, telling How do you deal with your mistakes? How
of journalistic horror stories in the real do you bounce back? Do you get second
world, as all listen in awe. As you drop chances? Can you earn forgiveness from
your occasional pearls of wisdom, you friends, lovers, colleagues, and even the
hope no one notices how long it’s been dreaded board of directors?

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• Emergencies 101: The Daily Forward now it’s hit the campus. Both the City
hunkers in an almost-constant bunker Desk and the Campus Desk believe the
mentality. The university wants to cut story is theirs. A new reporter stumbles
its funding, stories come in late, and upon a big scoop . . . and could take it
advertising is down. Even the board of anywhere. Will infighting at the Daily
directors, a group made up mostly of Forward cost it one of its few, legitimate
Journalism School professors, starts to chances of scooping the Capital City
wonder how necessary a printed student Journal?
paper is in the information age. • The paper throws a house party to
• Survival 101: In college you have to grow raise needed funds. In and of itself, this
up quickly. Your familiar high school contravenes university regulations, but
safety nets are hundreds of miles away. even more goes wrong. An underage frosh
You’re constantly trying to make ends reporter goes missing, only surfacing days
meet, make class, and make the grade. You afterwards. The frosh threatens to publish
need each other to keep going and keep an exposé on their treatment . . . in the
growing, whether you realize it or not. Badger Observer. Was it just an innocent
prank, a hazing incident, or something
Tightening the Screws worse? How much trouble will the Daily
College newspapers can be fun, frivolous Forward be in, for how long?
places. But the real world can be a bitch. How • A popular music reviewer is stealing the
do kids taking their first steps in journalism, promotional CDs the Forward is sent, and
and in adulthood, deal with major breaking selling them at Discs-R-Us. The Campus
stories, while their comfort zones crumble Desk gets wind of this. But could the most
around them? popular columnist in the paper defect to
Many scenes unfold in the Daily Forward the Badger Observer if exposed? What
offices. In its large, communal central does the writer need the money for? What
space, the Campus, City, Editorial, Copy will it cost to keep him?
and Arts Desks are literally desks. Doors • A reporter for the Capital City Journal
lead to smaller offices for the editor in chief blatantly steals a scoop from a Daily
and managing editor (shared), the Business Forward reporter. But who’s going to
Department (larger), and the Graphics and believe a freshman from the school rag
Layout and Photo staffs. At times, the offices over an award-winning investigative
can seem dead. But later in the day, and late reporter?
at night when deadlines must be met or • A senior reporter gets caught making up
there’s no story, they transform into a hive of quotes that make it into the paper. Do you
activity. keep this potential embarrassment to the
Scenes may also take place at crime Forward’s reputation quiet, or expose the
scenes, concerts, house parties, student fraud for the greater journalistic good?
government budget meetings, dorm rooms, • Some brainiac thought an annual
and the sporting events always happening on touch-football game between the two
a major state college campus. Oh, and bars. rival papers would be a good idea. Some
Many, many bars. inter-paper hook ups occur afterwards. A
• The Campus Desk editor is dating a cast member literally wakes up in the arms
Campus Desk reporter. To make matters of the “enemy” the next morning. What
worse, the City Desk editor, editor in chief, happens when they start coming to the
and the managing editor are crushing on Forward office as a couple?
the reporter. In the real world, this would • Alcohol is allowed at staff meetings. The
be cause for immediate termination. Do beer’s never great, but it’s cheap. This
the staff members see it this way? week, however, there’s never been so much
• A series of burglaries has hit the city, and hostility between the Business Desk,

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trying to keep the paper afloat, and the to. That’s when the hospitalizations for
Editorial Department, with its blistering, excessive alcohol consumption come to
anti-business editorials. Was booze such light.
a good idea in a situation where much • A beloved political science professor
might be revealed? has begun spouting bizarre conspiracy
• Rolling Stone’s annual issue has come out, theories at his lectures. The Forward
and Wisconsin State University has finally knows this because three of its reporters
made it to number one—the number one are in his Contemporary Political Thought
party school in the country, that is. How class.
does the Forward respond? • Something went wrong at the State Street
Halloween Fireworks Show. The reporters
Typical News Stories covering the annual event were preparing
The Daily Forward mostly deals in small a fluff piece. You weren’t ready for an
matters: student council budget meetings, accident that would leave a pool of blood,
concert reviews, ill-considered fashion advice and a fireworks technician’s head blown
articles. Occasionally, though, a big story breaks off.
and shit gets real. • A presidential candidate is coming to
• A shooter is reported on campus. Shots campus. If the polls are anything to go by,
were fired. Is this a simple mugging gone this could very well be the next president
wrong, or the start of something larger, of the United States. Can you nose out
and more tragic? the real story the professional press has
• On the other end of State Street, the missed?
students are organizing a sit-in at the State • A student goes missing. Really, really
Capitol, protesting the governor’s increase missing. Three days later, the body turns
in student tuition. It was a lark at first. But up.
now there are rumors of a crackdown by • Wisconsin State University threatens to
Capitol Police. shut down the Daily Forward: the paper
• State police seized $10,000 of psychedelics itself becomes the story as staffers occupy
from Pi Kappa Phi, the fraternity that the the offices for three solid weeks, some
head of the Business Department belongs even chaining themselves to their desks.

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Names

Editor in Chief and Managing Editor, Arts Desk

Campus Desk, City Desk
Kim Frank Terry Indie
Raheem Tim Albany Ezra
Anthony Sujata Jaques Mia
Stacy Le Madison Quinn
A’isha Joaquin Qiao Jamal
Abby Tony Alex
Mahika Laura Aarav
Sofia Vaughn Jada
Stacy Piper Sophie

Editorial Desk Sports Desk

Emma Oliver Bill Kiara

Karen Arjun Ted Terrance
Myles Diego Frank Amber
Juan Gillam Butch Ana
Jacob Demetrius Li Tyrone
Gabriella Shanice Felipe Darius
Meiling Nia Kim Katie
Trevon Rav
Aiden Emily

Graphics and Layout Department, Business Department

Photo Department
Mark Alli Carley Lei
Paul Zoe Jake Amy
Vi John Caitlin Lucas
Morry Tanner Hannah
Tracy Chao Hunter
Gianna Buffy Kennedy
Alexandra Connor
Trace Abigail
Joey Bradley