Students at the Arizona State University Walter Cronkite School of Journalism received a crash course in alternative journalism, courtesy of Willamette Week editor Mark Zusman.

Zusman — who spoke as part of the school’s Must See Mondays series — urged students to “rattle cages” and said working at an alt-weekly is one of the best jobs in journalism:

“Enter imaginatively into the action,” Zusman said. “What does that mean? Well, that means thinking imaginatively about how to make the significant interesting. It means rejecting the notion of journalism as stenography. It means engaging readers.”

Zusman explained that the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office in Oregon said garbage was public property once it was on the curb, so the Willamette Week did some digging. They sent reporters to dig through the refuse of the mayor, police chief and district attorney and published the results.