by Abigail Slaughter
2014 marked the end of an era for The Bullet, the University of Mary Washington’s newspaper. After decades of being called “The Bullet”, the newspaper was renamed “The Blue and Gray Press”, marking the end of an era for the publication and the beginning of an effort to change its image.
Alison Thoet, the paper’s former editor-in-chief, led the renaming campaign alongside two other former head editors--Mariah Young, former managing editor, and Jonathan Polson, former associate editor.
[Image description: This is a News article about a town hall discussing Greek life.]
The newspaper staff thought the newspaper needed to change its image. By the mid-2010’s, known by many Gen “X”s as the Great Recession, the newspaper had been called The Bullet since the Great Depression. UMW had changed a lot over the years, so why not follow suit?
“We were doing a really big refresh of the newspaper. We got a new website, done by Laura [Hanks] (formerly known as Laura Brumfield), changed the paper size to tabloid size... we were refreshing everything,” said Hope Racine, former news editor of the paper. She figured that a new name would go along with it.
[Image description: This is an image of Hope Racine, former news editor. / Twitter]
However, there was another reason for a name change. Here’s a hint: sex.
What about sex?
Sexclamations, a small column typically published on the third or fifth page of the paper, was dedicated to discussing sex and other mature content in a less-than-subtle way.
The section had published uncomfortable content before, like, “To Shave or Not to Shave? That is the Question for Both the Girls and Guys” about shaving pubic hair and “As Weather Warms, Temptation Strikes” about outdoor sex. However, The Bullet’s section of Sexclamations published on March 17th, 2011 took it much farther.
The Bullet published a brief article titled “Warm Weather Brings Short Skirts and ‘Ogling’ Eyes.” (ogling is a term used to describe men’s intense gazing at women and gawking at their features in a creepy way). Just after the title, there it was– Page 3 of the paper: “When women make the decision to wear their summer clothes, they are perpetuating a terrible, lecherous problem that they usually complain about called the ‘ogling conundrum’.” Yikes.
[Image description: This is an image of the March 17th, 2011 article published in the Sexclamations section.]
Although the article was intended to be satire, it was too late–some members of the student body were not happy.
In the following week’s column, some students shared their opinions offering their mixed, but mostly negative reviews of the previous week’s publication. In a Letter to the Editor, Courtney Turney, a UMW sophomore at the time, said “Stop objectifying the female body” and was disappointed by the content of the article, stating it is normal for women to wear less clothes when the weather gets warmer.
The backlash that the column received made it to the Free Lance Star, a local newspaper in Fredericksburg, Virginia. The Free Lance Star’s Jeff Branscome discussed some UMW students’ criticism of the article, some of which included that the column was using rhetoric that is often used when discussing sexual assault–the unfair question of “What was she wearing?” still asked in our sexual assault discourse today.
Additionally, with the article came the creation of a forum called “Blaming Women” that would discuss the column.
Racine feels that instances of controversy like these, “stuck in the student population’s mind”, one of the major reasons for the editorial staff wanting to start fresh. It was the beginning of the end for that section and, whether the then editing staff knew it or not, The Bullet as a newspaper.
According to Racine, what she called “shoddy journalism” that some editorial staff wanted the paper to distance itself from also played a part in the decision to rename. Although she didn’t go into heavy detail, she made it clear that some editors made some poor reporting decisions over the years, and the occasional person calling out an article for something small because they don’t understand what a newspaper does compounded the worsening of The Bullet’s reputation. . Someone’s always got an opinion.
Two sides of the same rusty coin
How does the song go? “You can change your hair, and you can change your clothes/ You can change your mind, that’s just the way it goes/ You can say ‘goodbye’ and you can say ‘hello’/ But you’ll always find your way back home”? It’s that one Hannah Montana song from childhood that periodically pops into my head, and I think it perfectly sums up the challenges that come with rebranding.
The Disney Channel pop star is right!--hear me out. Even if someone changes everything about how they look, it can be very difficult to truly change their identity and set themselves apart from their past self. This is exactly what happened with The Bullet--it is easier said than done.
“There were a lot of hard conversations about our decision making process, concerning what it would mean to alumni and the student body if we changed the name, and what it meant for the paper moving forward,” said Young.
The name “The Bullet” was deeply intertwined with the history of Fredericksburg as a city, and that city loves their Civil War history. Driving along Route 3, just west of Central Park, there is a statue of a Confederate soldier that towers over the road and there are four Civil War monuments within a 1.5-mile radius. Even on the University of Mary Washington campus, there is a war plaque near Combs Hall.
“The Bullet” followed this same pattern of commemoration of the Civil War by the community at large, yet oddly enough, the editorial staff settled on the name “The Blue and Gray Press”, two colors often associated with the Civil War, more specifically the Confederacy.
The newspaper faced pushback from alumni. Will Copps, former editor-in-chief of the school newspaper during “The Bullet” era, did not like the new name.
[Image description: This is an image of Will Copps, former editor-in-chief of the Bullet before the 2014 renaming campaign. / Kennedy Center]
“I thought the B&G decision and corresponding association with the confederacy was really strange honestly, even accounting for the history of the city,” said Copps. “It was weird to pick something arguably as or more offensive.”
Copps doesn’t think that the war is all the riverside city has to offer, and he’s right; it’s not all cannons, Civil War collectibles at antique stores, “Civil War this” and “Civil War that”. The new name was just another side of the same rusty coin.
Trust the process?
The newspaper decided to change their image and start fresh by leaving behind the old name and controversy of years past. The Blue and Gray Press was to be an homage to the colors of the university.
Lauren Hanks, former acting online editor for the newspaper, said that for a few years after renaming to the Blue and Gray Press, students still wouldn’t even refer to the newspaper by its new name, making it hard to solidify their new image on campus. Maybe students still wanted a little bit of *spice* in their school publication–they used to have jokes and a sex column to look forward to, and the renaming campaign brought seriousness and “Weekend Weather” to the front page.
[Image description: This is an image of Lauren Hanks (formerly known as Lauren Brumfield), former acting online editor. / laurenhanks.com]
“In retrospect, and knowing what I know now about brand changes in general: they take time. People still referred to the paper as The Bullet years after we had changed to The Blue & Gray Press,” said Hanks.
Each couple of years, the entire newspaper staff sets off in different post-graduate directions, but the 2014 staff left a renaming roadmap for future staff to follow.
The Blue and Gray Press existed for about seven years, and then the newspaper staff saw an opportunity for change.
How did that go? You tell me–the newspaper no longer goes by that name.