The Wake

In a shocking turn of events Friday, The Wake was granted full operational funding from the university for the 2006-2007 academic year. After the Student Fees Service Committee shorted The Wake more than $30,000 of their requested fees earlier this semester, the Strategic Positioning Research Task Force budgeted unlimited financial support for the student-run magazine.

The blank check does have a catch, though. “Its not like they gave them the money out of the goodness of their goddamned hearts,” says Vice Provost for Student Affairs Jerry Rineheart, who intervened to approve The Wake’s fees last spring but declined to do so this time around. The Research Task Force granted unrestricted funds to The Wake conditionally—the magazine has agreed to allow university researchers to study its production, as well as the staff’s academic and personal lives, up to 24 hours a day as long as deemed necessary.

“We have a chance here to really leave Wisconson in the dust,” says President Bob Bruininks, who developed the Strategic Positioning task forces to craft the university into one of the top three public research universities in the world. “At first I thought to myself, ‘Eh, let the Fees Committee shut that group of news-loving hippies down,’” Bruininks says, “but then I realized, we should take this opportunity to study these students, find out what makes them tick to prevent these types from cropping up around here again.” He explained that researchers chiefly want to understand why these students believe so adamantly that the student body—of more than 50,000 students spread across three campuses—deserves more than one publication.

“Do they have some kind of beef with the Daily? Where are they getting these crazy revolutionary ideas against a ‘monopoly of the press’? What are those new-fangled professors teaching them in their journalism classes? These are the questions we hope to answer,” says Tim Mulcahy, vice president for research. Mulcahy explained that the university is in a unique position to facilitate such a study. “Heck, most universities of this size and stature, especially those touting journalism schools, have historically funded a student magazine,” he said, “so they’ve already ignored a chance to examine the formation of something like this.”

Editor-in-Chief Kay Steiger says she is happy to be graduating this spring, before The Wake moves from its Dinkytown office to the center of Northrop Mall this summer. “I think it’s great, but personally, I’d feel weird working behind that interrogation glass,” she said. The new office will be a dome-like structure composed of two-way mirrors, explains Bruininks. Researchers will try to stay out of the way of production, by observing the newsroom from the other side of the glass, though they will follow Wake staffers to class, meals and “any personal outings or vacations of suspicion,” Mulcahy said. Researchers will bring camera-people as needed, and Wake staffers have consented to wear recording microphones at all times.

“Depending on how interesting the dynamic is, we might actually pitch it as a reality show,” Mulcahy says of the need to catch the research findings on tape. This is a new endeavor the task force began evaluating after managing editor Lane Trisko adds weekly pizza parties as well as a newsroom hot tub to The Wake’s account. “These researchers aren’t joking around. They want to study The Wake in it’s element, and we are sure as hell going to do everything we can to help that process,” Trisko says. “These ‘leisures’ are absolutely necessary for our office to operate in full effect,” he explains.

“Since the fees committee was unable to articulate how much it costs to run a publication like the Wake, were kind of at a loss,” Mulcahy admits. The research task force will trust The Wake, and approve all budget requests, he explains. “There’s just too much riding on this research to be frugal,” he says.

James DeLong, who founded the Wake in 2002 with Chris Ruen and is now on the Board of Directors, was “baffled,” when he found out he would be living with researchers and cameramen beginning in September. “Of course it is imperative that we analyze the people who first birthed this brainchild,” Mulcahy said of this decision. “I was hesitant at first,” DeLong says, “but I guess I’d like to find out why I ever had that crazy notion that magazine majors should not only be able to, but should actually be encouraged to work on a magazine during college. Plus, the researchers did offer fair incentives.” DeLong says he did not have time to provide details on incentives, as he was being interviewed via telephone during a busy Board of Directors meeting in Hawaii.

“All I can say is that the presence of researchers might hurt our game, our concentration on the work at hand,” explains Vincent Staupe, a Wake reporter who has been spotted driving a 2006 Z4 BMW Coupe around campus, “so we’re making sure we have certain comforts to offset that balance.”

Comforts or not, some Wake employees are still not thrilled to work under the eye of university researchers. “We’ve had to raise our salaries quite a bit to get our staff to stay and work under these conditions,” business manager Andy Tyra says. The Wake is currently hiring reporters for a new “World Travel,” section, private chef’s, bartender’s and masseuse’s for fall semester. See to apply.

Funds for the Wake will come primarily from what was previously budgeted as salaries for Student Fees Committee members, which is scheduled to be replaced by robots this fall.