Banner Head 2?

UPDATE: The original article in the Wall Street Journal was originally written by Sally Beatty, not Ben Casselman.

For a long time last night, it looked as though we were going to have our second banner headline in two days.

As the news about John Kluge's major donation began to leak online, we ended up hustling to report. We had been told that we needed to get a reporter to today's announcement in Low, but hadn't been told why, and while we had heard that it was probably going to be a donation of some sort, we had no sense for how big the donation would be or at whom it would be directed.

Thus, our first story on the issue last night attributed most of its information to the Wall Street Journal. From our perspective, it sucks getting beat out by the Journal--we should be able to cover our own home turf better than anybody else. (The bitter sting of defeat was softened minimally by the fact that the reporter for the Journal was former Spectator news editor Ben Casselman.)

But we continued to fire up the phones. In addition to Public Affairs--which wasn't talking beyond a media advisory issued "for planning purposes only" that several news organizations had been sent--I personally called both a Kluge and John Jay scholar,at least one dean, tried contacting a Trustee and a member of the Columbia College Board of Visitors and probably a dozen or so others, but I wasn't getting much traction.

Then, just like with the Shapiro announcement, somebody decided that it was time for us to know what was going on. I got a call from University Spokesman Robert Hornsby--to whom I had already spoken once--offering the paper an interview with President Bollinger to confirm and discuss the details of the gift.

Long story short, we got the interview, were the first ones to post quotes from Bollinger, and got the story confirmed and online first of anybody in the world. Not bad for a day's work.

Alright, I've gotta go now. While I'm not the reporter on today's official announcement, I decided to grab a seat in the back. I see Mayor Bloomberg, Congressman Rangel, and about a half dozen EVPs and deans. I'm really excited to listen.