The Poly Post, La Nueva Voz both in business of ‘La Verdad’
*In response to this article: Introducing ‘La Verdad,’ Student journalism will never cease and desist*
By Jeff Schenkel
Editor:
In response to your editorial “Student journalism will never cease, desist” in your Sept. 30 issue, first, thank you for the editorial cartoon. We’ve never been the subject of one of those in our 16 years of publication (although for years we had a volunteer artist producing her own cartoons which we published here at La Nueva Voz, Pomona’s only community newspaper).
As P.T. Barnum said, the only bad publicity is no publicity, so thanks for the help in getting our name out there.
Now let me address several of the points in your editorial regarding our paper, keeping in mind that mentoring students and protecting a legal copyright, trademark or registered business name are two separate issues.
First, I’ve been in the news and public relations business for the past 55 years after graduating with a bachelor’s degree in journalism in 1970.
And on my missing the boat on mentoring members of your editorial staff, I was asked – and regularly accepted – by at least two instructors to speak to journalism and public relations classes at both Cal Poly Pomona and Cal State Fullerton as far back as in the 1980s.
In modern history, let me fast forward to the past 16 years of our publication of La Nueva Voz. We took over the paper when the old La Voz went out of business – we just thought it was important for new generations of readers – and writers – to hold on to at least this one newspaper in an era of publications going out of business – more than 3,500 U.S. newspapers have gone out of business since 2005 and 130 went out of business just last year. I have frequently collaborated with The Poly Post staffers by sending them stories through the years that I thought might be of interest to them and inviting them to either run them or re-write them as appropriate.
They did that from time to time. There were many story opportunities to choose from when Dr. Soraya Coley was your president – and we covered her regularly — in an era of leadership by controversy.
Now on your second concern, the manner in which I approached The Poly Post on the use of our business name (formalizing my request in writing rather than making a telephone call – and for the record, I did, in fact, attempt to reach out to your newspaper before sending an e-mail and calling your faculty advisor), let me go back to the early days of photocopiers in the 1960s. In those days (and still today, but not so much), it was common for people to say in public things like “let me provide you with a Xerox copy” of a document.
You see, Xerox pretty much was the leader and a pioneer in the industry. Its name became a common synonym for photocopying. But, if someone was using another brand, then using the name Xerox in public jeopardized the continuing status of the company’s copyright, trademark and even registered business name.
Attorneys for Xerox began sitting in on business meetings, city council meetings and the like around the country just so they could stand up and announce that Xerox refers only to their company and to encourage the user to please refer to documents as photocopies.
This was a move to protect a legal right to a term that would be documented and referenced in the event their name was ever challenged in court in an effort to make the term a generic or “fair use” reference. The same principle applies to the name of a newspaper.
So, you see, we’ve really been doing what you suggest we should be doing all along. And our actions really were in line with real world business tactics, after all. Because the fact of the matter, as it turns out, is that we both are in the business, to borrow your new term, of “Introducing ‘La Verdad.’”
I encourage you to hold on to that fighting energy when you, as you said in your editorial, “graduate . . . (and) step into the wider field.”
Jeff Schenkel, Publisher
La Nueva Voz