college rag

Student Press Law Center

The man who stole 1,300 newspapers from Texas Christian University and deposited them in recylce bins around campus has turned himself in.
From the SPLC story: “Charles Beecherl, an entrepreneurial business major, told the Daily Skiff he dumped the Sept. 23 papers because it went too far in publishing a photo of a [...]

UCLA’s Daily Bruin will have dispatches from China, Thailand and other countries through the Bridget O’Brien Scholarship.
“The intention of the fund is twofold: to give current Bruin staffers the opportunity to see the world and experience reporting from abroad and to localize international events and issues for the UCLA community,” editor-in-chief Anthony Pesce writes.
The Bruin will also [...]

Nineteen editors of college newspapers around the country liveblogged Friday’s presidential debate for The Caucus, the New York Times political blog.
Posts started at 8:55 p.m. and continued into the wee hours of Saturday morning. The posts garnered more than 70 comments.

About 1,300 copies of the Sept. 17 issue of The Echo were stolen, the Student Press Law Center reports.
Adviser David Keith said he thinks the theft might be due to an editorial criticizing the student government president at the University of Central Arkansas. 
From SPLC: “Keith said the paper would pursue legal action against whoever stole [...]

The Vanderbilt Hustler made the controversial decision to run the 51 mugshots of Sigma Chi fraternity members arrested on charges of disorderly conduct and underage drinking.
After many critical comments, the editor posted this response.
“The presentation of the cover story was meant to be provocative and eye-catching; this reflects the extraordinary nature of the story. There [...]

From Media for Freedom: “Student journalists worldwide can register for a free, one-year membership to an online writing portfolio Web site that they can use to show off their writing and demonstrate their web savvy to potential employers.
Writer’s Residence, an online portfolio Web site for writers, is offering the memberships to university [...]

CoPress, the grassroots movement to create a new college media CMS, is surveying college newspaper online editors on their current CMS and how satisfied they are with it. Seven newspapers had submitted responses as of Tuesday.
“One of the big steps is our survey for online editors across the country, which we hope to use to [...]

College Media Matters

College Media Matters has an entertaining interview with Paras Bhayani, managing editor at the Harvard Crimson.
From the interview:
What is the coolest part about being Crimson ME?

Knowing a great deal about Harvard and being able to immediately shine a spotlight when you hear a story that needs to be told

[...]

The editor-in-chief of The Daily Campus, Jordan Hofeditz, writes about the hardest parts about being a student newspaper editor at Southern Methodist University : choosing content, filling space and managing classwork and journalism.

The Parthenon, the student newspaper of Marshall University, will resume its Monday publication beginning next week. They were able to fund it after parntering with a local paper.
“‘The change from a four-day to a five-day publishing week came as a result of a new publishing deal with the Herald-Dispatch,’ said Corley Dennison, dean of Marshall’s [...]

Nate Carey at The Daily Cardinal writes in today’s paper a piece calling for a sports journalism course at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and other Big 10 schools.
“…there exists no viable option available to someone interested in the vast, interesting and important field of sports journalism, which includes writing, reporting and broadcasting.
This is [...]

Hartford Courant
As previously reported by CR,  Quinnipiac University President John L. Lahey has declared that no university employees talk to student reporters at the Quad News, an independent campus news site.
The Hartford Courant sat down with Quad News editors this week.
A group of editors at the established campus newspaper, The Chronicle, walked out last year when Lahey told them they [...]

Rikki King at Washington State University’s Daily Evergreen notes the difference in treatment for reporters at professional papers and at college papers.
“While I was at the Daily Herald, sources were almost always polite, punctual and professional. They returned my calls and wanted to help me get the information I needed. It forced me to up [...]

Washington Post
The Howard University student newspaper, the Hilltop, is returning to publication Monday through Friday, the Washington Post reports. It is the only historically black institutions to have a daily paper. The Hilltop shut down in the spring because of budget woes. It updated its Web site infrequently during that time.
A brief history from the story: [...]

Student Press Law Center
Supporters of the SPLC can now be a fan of the center on Facebook.

The Stranger
Another Seattle community college has lost its journalism program and student newspaper. Seattle Central Community College cut its journalism program and put the City Collegian out of operation, The Stranger reports. Last year, North Seattle Community College also did the same thing to its journalism program and The Polaris.
A letter from the SCCC journalism [...]

The Daily Nebraskan
University administrators at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln aren’t granting interviews to the student newspaper. A board editorial explaining why the administrators were no longer being quoted suggests that after a records request an associate to the chancellor instructed many to “not answer any questions or look into any inquiries or requests from journalists [...]

MediaShift
NYU journalism student Alana Taylor wrote a piece criticizing her “Reporting for Gen Y” course for not being advanced enough. Then:
“She told the class to read the article,” Taylor wrote at MediaShift. “Then she asked, ‘You all read Alana’s article, what did you think about it?’ There was silence for a good 30 or 45 [...]

Ashworth University, one of the country’s largest distance-learning colleges, has formed a student newspaper and posted an introductory video to the Web. It will be named the Ashworth Chronicle.
Betty Ray, one of the paper’s editors, said it is due to launch next week and will feature student, faculty and staff profiles, a “Dear Abby” section.
“We’ve [...]

Daily Eastern News
The Society for Collegiate Journalists at Eastern Illinois University is sponsoring an open-mic event today in honor of the First Amendment, the Daily Eastern News reports.
“Adam Larck [the man in charge, CP assumes] said if anyone wants to yell out obscenities about the government for five minutes, then they can do it,” the [...]

Northwest Arkansas’ News Source
WEHCO Media is interested in developing a closer relationship with the Columbia Missourian, the Northwest Arkansas’ New Source is reporting. One possibility would involve WEHCO’s Jefferson City (Mo.) News Tribune printing the Missourian and running the business side with students still responsible for editorial content. The News Tribune already prints the Missourian.

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Yale Daily News
Quinnipiac University administrators won’t give reporters for the Quad News, an independent online student newspaper access to varsity coaches, staff or athletes, the Yale Daily News reported. The Quad News is a new venture by the former staff of The Chronicle, who walked out en masse last semester to protest letting administrators pick the editorial [...]

Student Press Law Center
The student government association at the University of Redlands cut the student paper’s budget from $39,000 to $10,000. The Association of Students President says that student support at the private university for the newspaper isn’t there, and also that “some students were unhappy with certain articles” the weekly newspaper published.

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The Daily Athenaeum
College Republicans at West Virginia University are starting their own newspaper because they are dislike the political coverage in The Daily Athenaeum. “When I say, ‘why do you want to start a college newspaper?’ It’s not because you want to educate people, or because we want to get our voice out there, but I [...]

The Advance-Titan
The University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh will fund free newspapers Monday through Friday as part of the Collegiate Readership Program managed by USA Today until Oct. 3. Oshkosh Student Association President said providing copies of USA Today, The New York Times and The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel will cost about $3.25/student. “The mission of the readership program is to promote [...]

The Future of News
UNC professor Ryan Thornburg blogs about a panel discussion at the Online News Association conference in Washington, D.C. regarding newsroom-classroom partnerships. “The room had decided that the news biz did indeed have problems and that the academy just might be stocked with the resources needed to solve them. … If universities want to [...]

Jessica DaSilva
The Independent Florida Alligator Editor Jessica DaSilva writes about her first month on the job. “When I started, I was confronted with a broken staff. My managing editors (Hilary Lehman and Ken Schwencke) and I spent our first week back in Gainesville meeting with members of every desk to assess their needs and hear what they [...]

The Commercial-News
The Oakwood High School newspaper in Fithian, IL, The Oakwood Times, started publishing online this year. “With this many kids in the class, daily stories keep people more involved,” journalism teacher Tim Lee said. “And I think a big part of the future of journalism is online.”

CM Life, the student newsaper of Central Michigan University, now has a Twitter feed.
CR will be working on a database of newspapers that Twitter, similar to that on the graphicdesignr blog. Check for a page link on the left-hand side of the main CR page. If you see a college paper Twitter missing, send us [...]

Connect Savannah
The Inkwell, Armstrong Atlantic State University’s newspaper, has published four weekly editions this semester as it fights a lawsuit against the school. Three current or former staffers are claiming that budget cuts by administrators were done “in retaliation for editorial content decisions.”

College Media Network
Chris Gillon writes that the network is working to fix issues with the College Publisher 5 system. “We’ve been working through some minor CP 5 site glitches yesterday into this morning. A handful of CP 5 sites were affected by these glitches. These involved some intermittent site issues, including sporadic downtime and slow [...]

The Greenville, N.C. paper’s cover ran with this headline for 9/11: “After five years we still remember.” They also ran the names of North Carolina soldiers killed in Iraq. The PDF of the front page is the most commented in the Web site. Anonymous writes: “So what happened 5 years ago? Im sure you cant be talking about SEPTEMBER 11TH 2001!!!!!!!” PDF of front page after the jump.

Student Press Law Center
After more than 800 copies of The Minaret were stolen by a student and a professor in two separate instances, the newspaper filed a complaint about one of the thefts. As a result, the student will have to complete 20 service hours at the paper, and the paper was awarded $150. “I noticed [...]

At the Alligator
The key to reducing staff turnover is hiring eager reporters, setting expectations and being sensitive to studenet reporters’ time, Independent Alligator Managing Editor Hilary Lehman writes on At the Alligator, a blog covering the trials and tribulations of the UF paper.
The post is in response to the paper losing three of its nine [...]

The Chronicle of Higher Education
Student newspapers seem to be doing fine, despite the problems professional papers are facing: “We’re not experiencing a problem,” said Kevin Schwartz, general manager at The Daily Tar Heel, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.“There’s no advertising downturn for us.”

Thanks to Kevin Koehler, CoPress.org has an updated “About” page that refines the project’s mission.
From the page: “Student newspapers, at colleges and universities, fare no better than the pros. In fact, they’re generally worse off. Few student publications have much technical talent at all on staff, and what they do have is spread very thin. [...]

The University of Missouri’s journalism school is celebrating its 100th anniversary today and unveiling its new building. “Thirty-five interactive journalism sessions, 27 technology discussions and 11 museum exhibits and displays offer a range of ideas about journalism and its future,” the Missourian reports, through registration is $125. A list of events is available in the [...]

CoPress, the grassroots movement to create a new college media CMS, has launched its official Web site.
From the about page: “CoPress is a technical ecosystem of student newspapers all about figuring out better ways to manage, display, and distribute content online. At the moment, we’re just getting things started.”
The project is led by Adam Hemphill, Daniel Bachhuber, Greg [...]

Daily Eastern News
Starting next fall, Eastern Illinois University in Charleston will require freshman journalism majors to buy Mac laptops. “What I envision in three or four years, we won’t be meeting in the computer labs and students will bring their own computer into the classroom,” said James Tidwell, chair of the journalism department.

The Jerusalem Post has helped launched the Campus Post, “a newspaper about Israel written for students and others who are interested in feeling more connected to Israel on campus. ‘The Jerusalem Post was seeking to expand its reach to college campuses and bring relevant, updated information to students,’ asserts Amanda Borschel-Dan, editor of Campus Post.”

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College Media Network

The College Media Network blog has a list of sites using College Publisher 5. If you’re about to convert, it might be worth your time to shoot them an e-mail.
Here’s the list, updated Sept. 4, with links.

The Associated College Press has named its finalists for the annual Pacemaker awards. Out of 241 newspaper entries, 48 were selected. Click here for the list.
From the ACP press release: “Newspaper finalists were chosen based on excellence in the following areas: Coverage and content, quality of writing and editing, leadership on the opinion page, evidence [...]

Innovation in College Media
The OU Daily, the student paper at the University of Oklahoma, has changed from a homemade CMS to the expensive Ellington, the Innovation in College Media blog reports.
Here’s the old site, taken from a Jan. 10 archive via the Wayback Machine.
Here’s the new one.

Editorialiste

The Editorialiste blog has a response to Alana Taylor’s kvetch last week on NYU’s “revamped” journalism school.
The respone, the Editorialiste writes, was overwhelmingly negative. “You are wrong,” “back to the NY Times,” “learn how to write news” and “take some classes” were among the responses, criticizing her for being critical and generally missing her point [...]

The Maneater

University of Missouri at  Columbia’s student newspaper weighs in on the discussion regarding the Columbia Missourian, the J-school lab paper that is in limbo after a decade of debt. “We understand things need to change; we need to find ways to cut costs and to keep the paper afloat, but we as journalists and [...]

In response to declining revenues, the Washington Square News — the student newspaper of New York University — has cut the amount of money its editors make and has begun running an advertisement on the front page daily, editor-in-chief Adam Playford writes.
Still, the paper is doing better than the professional media industry, Playford says. “So [...]

Ohio University’s The Post has redesigned its print edition, editor-in-chief Rick Rouan explains in today’s paper. Click here to download a PDF of Monday’s paper.
From the editor’s column: “We blended a modernized redesign that was just two years old with traditional elements. New and old have come together to make your newspaper even better.
Some of [...]

Ithaca College
An inaugural symposium sponsored by the Park Center for Independent Media will feature a panel of two dozen participants to discuss “growing independent media and their impact on journalism, politics and society.” “Independent media are booming today,” said symposium organizer and founding PCIM director Jeff Cohen, “because new technologies and crises in corporate mainstream media are [...]

Student Press Law Center

The Kentucky attorney general sided with the Eastern Progress, saying that Eastern Kentucky University “overstepped the law in redacting — or removing — addresses and other personal information from campus police department reports obtained by the Progress through a Freedom of Information Act request.” “At the beginning of 2008, we noticed [the redactions] were getting especially bad,” [...]

NPR

The Columbia Missourian, the official newspaper for the University of Missouri, could be the target of budget reductions as the school looks to cut costs, NPR reports. The Missouri legislature has been inconsistent in its funding for the university system, the Missourian has reported. Its editors told NPR that the Missourian, which is supported by journalism [...]

The Recorder, Central Connecticut State University’s student newspaper, has just joined Twitter. It is linking each issue’s PDF document file directly. Follow TheRecorder at twitter.com/TheRecorder.

White Mountain Independent
Arizona State University opened its new downtown home for the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication last week. Christopher Callahan, dean of the school, says the move from the past site in Tempe puts students closer to news. “Location itself is very important,” Callahan said. “Our students now have the ability to [...]

Inside Higher Ed
College newspapers are finally getting a “true — and bitter — taste of the ‘real world’”: “Late last month, two student newspapers announced plans to curtail print publications, citing the same drain in advertising revenues that has prompted layoffs at commercial newspapers across the country.”

Gawker
Hamilton Nolan writes in favor of killing college print editions when they don’t make money: “So tell us again: Why the f— is it necessary for a college paper to publish a print edition at all? They’re serving an audience where every last person has access to the internet. If a print edition isn’t profitable, [...]

The Daily Tar Heel
The Daily Tar Heel Editor Allison Nichols writes: “Sorry for any difficulties accessing content on DailyTarHeel.com. We’re switching to a new content management system, which should make things easier on our end and better on your end. Once we get the kinks worked out, we’re excited about the new features we can [...]

College Media Network
Rusty Lewis, director of university relations for College Media Network, blogs from The Daily Tar Heel’s office as they transition to College Publisher 5.0. “The mood among the Web staff is particularly energetic, and for good reason. When Volume 116, Issue 66 hits newsstands tomorrow, not only will it carry the day’s leading headlines, but [...]

Flyer News
Editor Will Hanlon writes that the admissions office at the University of Dayton doesn’t want to display the student newspaper anymore because of the effect it could have on prospective students. “I understand the admissions office’s goal: to get prospective students to choose this university. But to have the nerve to elect not to [...]

The Daily Utah Chronicle
I’m sure, site administrator Daniel Mace says, “that many readers are kind of wondering just what in the world is going on with this site, its broken links, its changing buttons, its evolving format.  Well, allow me to hopefully enlighten and inform.”

The Reporter
The Vacaville paper will have 15 college bloggers updating at least once a week to the paper’s blogs this fall. The citizen journalists are local students at universities across the country. ”We’re happy to have such a diverse team of students going to a variety of colleges both in California and beyond,” said Editor Diane Barney. “This [...]

Poynter
“I see information graphics as a convergence - a combination of four things. One of them is content,” said Karl Gude who teaches infographics at Michigan State University, “strong information. Another one is art and design. You have to be pretty good at that stuff. Another is technology. And finally, critical thinking. That’s what journalism [...]

The Daily Pennsylvanian
Executive Editor David Lei: I’ve discovered there are folks who regularly read The Daily Pennsylvanian online every morning shortly after we publish at 5 a.m. For those unusually dedicated readers and many others who would like to get their fill of Penn news before going to bed, I’m pleased to announce we’re now [...]

College Media Network
This weekend College Media Network team members will be going down to Chapel Hill and doing some training sessions and on-site support for the launch of the Tar Heel site Monday.  We will be doing some video and photos and interviews throughout the process to give a better picture of how students interact [...]

History on the Run
Recent UNC-CH graduate Erin Zureick discusses whether her journalism degree prepared her for today’s media world. “The larger question is did I gain valuable skills that I otherwise wouldn’t have by being a j-school major. I think I will have to give a mixed response to that question.”

Beyond Print
Sure, journalism schools can be stuck in the mud. But even college newspapers can find their leaders haven’t embraced new media. Katherine Lackey writes about her troubles getting her paper on Twitter.

MediaShift
Alana Taylor writes about her struggles with the New York University journalism school’s focus on making it into print journalism, even within a class titled “Reporting Gen Y.” Revelation from class: You can make money by blogging.

Meranda Writes
“Often in student media, at least the ones I worked at during college, the staff is thrown into their position and told, basically, to build wings on the way down.”

San Bernadino County Sun

The University of Redlands student newspaper has no editor heading into the 2008-09 school year. Funding could be reduced if student interest remains low. The school’s vice president and dean of student life, Char Burgess, says the school is considering offering journalism classes to promote interest in the paper. “The Bulldog was [...]

Triangle Business Journal

“We were on budget last year, and we anticipate being on budget this year,” says Kevin Schwartz, general manager of The Daily Tar Heel, the independent student publication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.