Those were the days

What follows is a post on the creation of a new student newspaper in the spring of 1970 at Emory:

Rodney Derrick asked me to explain the events the led to the creation of the Emory New Times.

In the spring of 1970, two candidates for editor of the Wheel, Steve Johnson and Randy Bugg, sought election by the Publications Board.

We had all been friends but these were difficult times. Kent State occurred just about the same time as the election and there was not a lot of studying going on, particularly among the people on the Wheel staff.

Steve won, but only after Dean Don Jones, a Bugg supporter, had to leave the meeting. The election begat an actual trial before some sort of student court, and Johnson again prevailed. Randy had a lot of influence within the newly elected SGA and we were able to split the SGA funding between the Wheel and the newly established New Times. Randy was the first editor, and Calder Sinclair was the second the following year.

The Bugg faction however favored the traditional newspaper model of straight news and with opinions presented only on the editorial pages. The Johnson faction was very much in favor of a newspaper along the model of the underground papers like Atlanta's Great Speckled Bird. Despite these differences in style, politically we were all opposed to the war in Vietnam, the biggest issue of the day

The best writer on either staff was Carl Hiaasen, who was a freshman in the fall of 1970. Carl only went to Emory for two years before transferring to Florida.

The New Times merged back with the Wheel several years later. All of the people at the heart of the schism had long since graduated.

The New Times had several staffers who went on to significant journalistic careers. Gail Bronson, for instance, was a national reporter for the Wall Street Journal and Forbes.