An insider’s look at the Mars’ Hill

Posted by admin on Mar 8, 2006 in Community | 0 comments

I’ve had a lot of explaining to do. First, people were hassling me about ditching Trinity for Ottawa last semester. Then I’ve had to deal with dudes demanding to know why my column wasn’t part of the last two issues of MH. “You used to be about the people, man,” they say, “What, did Ottawa make you 2 cool 4 school?”

“I’ve been busy,” I usually say, cellphone cradled against my neck as I casually turn the chrome-upholstered wheel of my Lincoln Navigator, on my way to the tennis club. “Besides, it’s not like I’ve changed that much,” I offer, rifling through my briefcase to find my business card book which houses my student ID. “See, look,” I say, holding up my Platinum-Plated LCC TWU ID card. “I’m still one of you guys.”

Well, okay. The “I’ve been busy” bit is the only true part from that last p-graph. If you haven’t seen me, it’s not because I’ve ditched Trinity for the tennis club. In fact, the reason you haven’t seen me is because I’ve sold my soul to Mars’ Hill. Last semester, if you wanted to know where I was, all you had to do was read my column. But this semester, you have to read between the lines to find me: I’ve become the Visual Editor for Mars’ Hill.
What does this mean? Nobody really knows. In the past, being Visual Editor had something to do with cutting articles out with scissors and gluing them onto an onion skin or something. These days, in order to understand the job of Visual Editor, you must understand where Mars’ Hills come from.

Here is how it happens. First, the Editor-in-Chief sits down and thinks very hard of a good theme for the upcoming issue. Like a slightly more professional game of “Telephone,” he tells the theme to the Section Editors, who tell their writers, who write articles based on theme, who then give their articles to the Copy Editors, who are a highly trained team of grammatical crack-shots who ensure there are remarcably few speling and formateing errors in the piper. Then, the Copy Editors give all the articles to me, and they say, “Make a newspaper out of these! You have four days to do it.”

I must quickly assemble my design team and start Editing the Visuals. Basically, that means I’m responsible for making the cover look nice, making sure all these columns line up nicely, making this headline, putting this picture here, making sure this font is tiny, putting the words “BADGERS ARE PEOPLE TOO ” running vertically in the right-hand margin in a weird size 15 font called “Megalomaniac,” and getting our illustrator (Josh) to draw this little picture of friendly robot named “PERRY” holding a box of nuns while holding a confused poodle with his robotic extension arm. After it’s all finished, we send the pages to the printing company, who employ some ancient plates-and-ink technique to put the paper into newsprint format, and then the next day, it magically appears in those wire racks around campus

(Please note: there are other people involved in Mars’ Hill too, and some people are far more involved than my descriptions suggest. For instance, we also have a Managing Editor, who is responsible for Pacing Around the Office while Pointing at Whiteboards. For a full list of who does what at the MH, look at the grey box at the bottom of the first inside page. Can you spot the immature sexual joke that I planted in the credits?)

So that’s why I haven’t been writing my column. But now I can sneak in some fun interactive games for you to play with the paper! For instance, in this issue, the phrase “Mars’ Hill proudly supports all species of dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures, regardless of race, religion or creed” is hidden in seven different parts of the paper. Can you find all seven? If you can, send us an e-mail telling me where they all are, and I’ll make sure your name somehow makes it into the next issue.