The first Reflector for 1965-66 tumbled at the press in the tiny hours Friday morning, September 10, and a new era in the history of the student newspaper at MSU began.
The name was the same as 76 years ago when the students of Mississippi A&M College founded a limping weekly, but beyond the newspaper’s name the new Reflector shows little similarity to The Reflector State students have seen for over three-quarters century.
“The changes in printing, format and size were made to bring The Reflector up to modern standards,” said editor Boyd Gatlin. “The publication frequency was moved up to semi-weekly status to accommodate the demands of an active and rapidly growing university,” he said.
Traditionally, The Reflector has been published weekly, recently every Thursday. It was printed by the conventional “letterpress” process, in which type is molded from molten metal by a linotype machine. The new Reflector is being printed by the more modern and economical “offset” method. Reflector managing editor Charles Walden said “offset” produces a much clearer print and eliminates the time consuming process of making costly engravings for pictures.
The size of MSU’s campus newspaper is another new feature. This year The Reflector is a tabloid, exactly half the dimensions of standard newspapers.
Editor Gatlin said: “The tabloid seems to be the latest trend in collegiate newspapers. The size is convenient, easy to handle and makes for improved appearance.” He said the change to tabloid was part of the effort to modernize the student-edited journal.
Efforts to make the change-over were begun several years ago, but each year passed with few results, according to Gatlin. “Past editors laid the groundwork to make this year’s change possible,” he said.
“We spent last spring fighting administrative red tape. The change required several costly investments in new equipment, and all this had to be cleared through proper channels. However, the administration was very cooperative when the idea was clearly explained to the. It seems almost everyone was ready for some kind of improvement,” he continued.
With modern office space located in the new Union building, the papers working space has accompanied the modernization move. For many years The Reflector office was located in the old Main dormitory. When that aging structure burned, publication offices were moved into the white frame building which stood on the site now occupied by the Chapel of Memories.
When the Union building was completed last year, The Reflector moved in. “The present office space couldn’t be better.” said Gatlin, “but already we are beginning to grow too big for the office, just as the entire university is out growing the Union building,
When asked what further improvements he would like to see made, Gatlin quickly mentioned the possibility of adding some type of journalism courses to the curricula. The university offers no such instruction at present. “Besides weakening MSU’s entire liberal arts curriculum, the complete lack of any type of instruction in journalism, art or photography makes newspaper publication here very difficult. I am surprised at the quality–or lack of it–of newspaper we are able to publish under these conditions,” he said.
“Then, we must always bear in mind that the changes made this year are only a step in the right direction. There are unlimited possibilities for improvement,” Gatlin continued. “But right now we hope our readers will excuse the mistakes we’re making. Everyone on the staff is entirely new to newspaper work, not to mention the fact that no one here has ever come in contact with offset printing.”
