Buck Fush

Whatever the case, McSwane says he and some staffers have received pay cuts, and on September 24, bloggers such as Jason Moses were told by the Collegian's web editor, Whitney Faulconer, that their positions had been slashed because of shortfalls. (A September 25 Rocky Mountain News article referenced another blogger who shared an identical account.) But according to McSwane, the bloggers' cuts had been in the works for weeks, and in an e-mail, Moses writes that Faulconer belatedly told him, "McSwane was going to lay us off soon regardless of whether or not the Bush editorial ran."

Right now, it's unclear whether McSwane will follow Moses out the door; the CSU communications board has scheduled an October 4 hearing to determine his future at the Collegian.But Dr. Horace Newcombe, director of the Peabody Awards program, which is attached to the University of Georgia, doesn't see the hullabaloo as a professional death sentence. "Student journalists occasionally take an opportunity to be provocative," he says. "I don't know that this will be any more significant for a long-term career than his earlier work. Certainly the Peabody association is on his resumé, and will always be."

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Collegian editor David McSwane is in the news.

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Brant Houston, acting executive director of IRE, concurs. "I think his more significant work will eventually overshadow this particular controversy," he allows, adding, "Younger journalists learn all the time, and I would say David's learned something, too."

That's a fact — but McSwane continues to struggle with the lesson. When he's asked if the highly erratic quality of the coverage he's received has made him more or less likely to pursue the journalistic life, he says, "I don't know. I mean, I love journalism. There are so many opportunities to do so much good for people and to keep the powers-that-be accountable. It's a huge part of democracy. But at the same time, it's disgusting to see how some people have taken it for granted."