A fond farewell to the State Press Dungeon
I’ve never set foot in the Dungeon and I miss it already.
The basement of the Matthews Center on the Tempe campus at Arizona State University has been home to the State Press, the school’s student-run independent news organization, for 42 years.
It’s moving.
In mid-May it will move to the Student Memorial Union, leaving the Dungeon — or the Basement, or just Matthews, depending on whom you’re talking to — behind.
“It is indeed the end of an era,” said Jason Manning, the director of ASU Student Media.
It is, of course. But it’s also the end of another old-school newsroom.
‘That space was entirely ours’
“The Matthews Center is — now, was — the heart and soul of the State Press,” Adrienne Dunn, the paper’s executive editor, said. “We have another newsroom on the downtown campus, but it’s just office space and doesn’t even begin to compare to the homey feeling of the Matthews Center. That space was entirely ours — which was very apparent from the mismatched decorations, flags, notes from alumni and dozens of photos plastered on the walls.” Now that sounds like a newsroom. Don’t be mistaken. Change is inevitable and necessary. In an email to State Press alumni Manning said, “The building’s many failings, some of which no doubt provided its essential character, mean it no longer serves a student media organization that continues its rocket-like trajectory into the future. It is not just the floods and the bugs, the lack of bathrooms, shoddy HVAC, and lack of cell phone service. There are serious structural issues that make staying untenable.”
Fair enough. And anyone who says things were better back in my day deserves a kick in the shin. A figurative kick in the shin.
But there is undeniably something about an old newsroom that you can’t find anywhere else. Today they tend to look like insurance offices, only with an inordinate number of laptops. Clean, tidy, lots of good work goes on.
Just like it does in an insurance office.
Building ‘essential character’
There were a lot of bad things about old newsrooms, and not just “floods and bugs,” as Manning notes. Inclusion has improved in newsrooms generally, but still has a long way to go. They did not tend to be bastions of polite behavior, to put it mildly. No one misses that.
But there’s something kind of cool about hunkering down in a place that cares more about the product than the process. It’s something Manning also mentions: “essential character.” It doesn’t make for the cleanest workplace in the world, but finishing a story on deadline is more important than cleaning up the spilled coffee.
Always has been, always will be. Priorities.
“I have yet to find a place that matches the energy of the State Press newsroom on a production night,” Dunn said. “As exhausting as these jobs can be, the people who work in our newsroom genuinely care about the work they produce and the community that they serve.
“Nothing compares to the relationships you build over breaking major news, stressing about decisions over dinners purchased from the Memorial Union, or group cheers when a new staffer publishes their first story — and the Matthews Center newsroom was the host of all of these moments, for decades.”
‘They loved it just as it was’
Kristin Gilger, the interim dean of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, has worked in her share of newsrooms, old and new. In a reply to Manning’s email, she recalled interviewing for the job of director of student media. The office was swanky.
“But where are the students? I asked. The answer: ‘Oh, down in the basement.’ At first I thought that was a bad thing, but as it turns out, it wasn’t so bad at all. It was their space and they could drag in old furniture, write on the walls and tack up anything they wanted. I tried to get them to clean it up every once in a while, but it was clear they loved it just as it was. And, in time, I came to love it, too.
“All of this is a long way of saying that while the entire building should proba
bly be condemned and the new digs in the student union will be very nice … I’ll miss the dungeon.”
Stuff happens in these kinds of places. Sometimes a president wanders by.
Jeff Mitchell, who worked at the State Press from 2006-08, remembered when former President Bill Clinton was speaking on campus in 2006.
Security cleared the area. “We were all shell-shocked and decided to hunker down in Matthews,” Mitchell said in an email. “Little did we know that afterwards, Secret Service wanted to escort our former president through Matthews Basement. What?”
It turned out pretty well.
Buildings don’t make great journalism. Great journalists do
“An agent walked into Matthews, saw us, looked surprised, and radioed (something like), ‘Hey, there are eight students here. What do you want to do?’” Mitchell said. “After some time, the agent looked back at us and said ... ‘Do you want to meet Bill Clinton?’” They did.
Tom Blodgett, an editor at Community Impact Newspaper’s Gilbert edition and a State Press editorial adviser, has a lot of memories of the place, one of particular importance.
“I met my wife there — got into a fight with her in about two minutes of meeting her, but a little over a year later we were dating and two and a half years after that we were married,” he said. “And I am hardly alone in meeting a spouse there. Both my daughters ended up working there, too, so it’s a whole family thing for us. We all relate to it, and we’re all a little sad about moving out of the dungeon.”
A lot of people are. But remember: A building doesn’t make great journalism. Great journalists do. And the new digs will offer the same opportunities for that. Manning said he understood the nostalgia.
“At the same time, it is the beginning of a new era, time to move forward and time for a new generation of State Pressers to create their own memories,” he said. “I know the feeling of attachment and loyalty that alumni have for the State Press, and for the friendships formed there, will go on, just like before.”
No doubt. Some aspects will be better, some not. But it’ll never be the same.