I got a copy of UMaine Today in my mailbox in the journalism department the other day. I really like the cover and It's a nice little PR piece for the sciency side of the university.However, as I was flipping through it I noticed that four out of the five main features were written by the same person: Kristen Andresen. Managing editor Margaret Nagle wrote one piece. There is also a lot of non-bylined stories that I'm assuming Kristen wrote too, because putting your name on everything in the magazine gets a redundant, ridiculous, and all around silly. This is probably why she doesn't appear in the masthead of the publication.
Don't get me wrong, Kristen is a top-notch writer and she's just doing her job. But as a writer and an editor we don't allow any writer to have more than two bylined pieces in our magazine each month. Because it looks redundant, ridiculous, and all around silly. The more voices the better in my opinion.
Now I know that UMaine is going through a budget crunch, but why not have students write some of the pieces? Interns are free and they're right on campus! It would be nice to know that there isn't just one person writing an entire magazine. By having (practically) one writer, UMaine Today loses some of it's credibility in my book.
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