The big C word

Nothing says real world experience and real world education like a big censorship scandal right at your own college, right?

Last week, the Columbus Dispatch ran a story about an admissions officer at Ohio Wesleyan University who decided he didn’t like an article the student newspaper ran celebrating a drinking tradition that happens on  campus. The campus would be hosting an open house for prospective students and the story did not put the campus in its best light, so the admissions officer threw away all of the papers in one of the campus’s buildings (likely a building these prospectives would be spending some time).

When student editors discovered this, they were outraged. The university, on the other hand, seemed less enraged about it and instead offered financial compensation for the discarded newspapers. The university spokesman quoted in the Dispatch article said that the employee made a mistake and that “This person thought that action might help to remove some information that may not present Ohio Wesleyan in the best light.”

There is no question that this is censorship — and for this to happen on a liberal arts campus is quite appaling. I applaud the student editors for their action on this one and using this as an opportunity to discuss the value of the free press, journalism, and the First Amendment rights that students even on a college campus have.

What’s perhaps most interesting about the censorship was that it was done in hopes of presenting the campus in its best light. Certainly, glorifying a tradition that involves drinking doesn’t help illuminate the golden opportunities of a college campus, but doesn’t it seem that by hiding that, the admissions officer is also deceiving potential students? By hiding student life, the admissions officer put on a lying face for prospective students who may truly be seeking a place that does not have a large drinking scene, for example, and by this deception, a future student may not only be unhappy about his/her choice in attending OWU, but also is now out tens of thousands of dollars, hundreds of hours, and may be all together disillusioned with higher education. If an admissions representative can’t be truthful or won’t let a student discover what the campus has to offer for him/her self through a medium such as the newspaper, then why should someone trust that person in making appropriate admissions decisions or counseling?

All of this is to say that one of the most important roles a student newspaper does on a campus is give a picture of what is important to the student body and campus culture as a whole. While a front page story may be about a drinking tradition, there certainly will be articles that refute the tradition, articles that celebrate major academic achievements of enrollees, and other valuable and informative pieces that a prospective student should use in making a decision in college attendance. By censoring the newspaper, the admissions officer has done a major disservice to prospectives by not allowing them access — free, easy, quick, and transportable — information about the campus life.

As a prospective student, however, I would be incredibly impressed with the response by the editorial board; that in and of itself speaks volumes about the campus and its culture. It would have been much easier to ignore the censorship or to have never investigated it, and it would have been easy to let it slide without making a case for it. But these students stood up and used this opportunity to educate their peers about their First Amendment right to the press and free speech.

Too often, new graduates are told they do not have the experience needed for a job, and often, their experiences while in school somehow do not count as “real experience” or it’s not valued in a manner that experience in the 9-5 workplace is. But something like this highlights yet again what dedicated, smart, and driven individuals are doing before they need to put on their professional pants and enter a work place. Issues like censorship and ethics creep into our lives quite easily, but it takes someone with courage and with intelligence to approach and shine light on the subject.

It’s also stories like this that make me wonder about how we will combat these First Amendment issues if the press moves to a digital model, rather than a print model. But for now, it’s time to applaud the hard work of The Transit staff who are likely underpaid, underadvised, and putting their hearts into the newspaper because it’s something they simply love to do — and something from which they are learning incredible life lessons.

If you get a chance, check out some of the great editorials and opinions that ran in support of The Transit. I find it more faith to the fact that newspapers still serve a very important role in a community.

Put to bed for good

If you have been keeping tabs at all, in the last couple of weeks, two majors newspapers have shut down their operations, The Rocky Mountain News out in Colorado and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Like many institutions, the newspaper industry has hit a very rough path with the economy, along with competing for many years now with digital sources that operate freely and more quickly, and in light of both, decreasing advertising sales. Since the bulk of a newspaper’s operational expenses depend upon advertising, it’s not too surprising that when advertisers move, newspapers are in a tough spot.

That said, the loss of the newspaper is a sad day for all. Whether you do or don’t read the print copy of a newspaper, it’s a huge part of our cultural heritage, particularly in the United States. Sure, newsprint is made from the scum of the scum paper, prone to crumbing and decomposition, a little help from a preservationist and smart archival practices keep them good and strong.

The print paper is of such value to our cultural history that the NEH and the Library of Congress have devoted thousands and thousands of dollars into the National Newspaper Digitization Project, with the hopes of digitizing many of the newspapers that bloomed in America’s younger years. During my graduate study, I was fortunate enough to be working on this grand-funded project — my job involved researching a selection of Texas newspapers, the towns and people who founded them, and the significant historical events occurring at that time. I spent countless hours digging through microfilmed papers, learning about the characters behind them, and really learning about who and what many of these towns were in their seminal years. Beyond the history, it was enjoyable to peruse the advertisements, the anecdotes, the serialized novels, the advice, and the classifieds; rather than simply the news giving a sense of history, these sorts of things really delineate the culture and interests of the community. The project to put these newspapers online is wonderful, as few repositories hold such vast collections as the one in which I worked, and even those libraries and repositories that DO hold these historical newspapers have either the funds or the equipment to make them readily available for public and egalitarian consumption.

Of course, not to be out done by such stronghold institutions like NEH and the LoC, Google also signed on to begin digitizing newspapers. I think it’s yet to be entirely hashed out or completed, so, we’ll see what happens with that project.

With the death of the print newspaper, we will no longer have to worry about projects down the line — these papers will either be entirely gone or will have taken the model that the Seattle P-I has with going online only.

But what happens when a paper goes online only?

The earth gets greener, content can be rolled out more quickly, advertisers are more willing to pay for their inches, it’s an interactive forum for readers, and, it can be accessed through a variety of mediums (beyond a desktop computer) at any time and often freely. The old paper model requires a lot of paper, ink, and machinery to be printed, it is usually printed the night before it is rolled out thus making some stories less than current, it’s static beyond the editorial pages, and advertising budgets are, well, fairly depleated. Likewise, with subscription numbers dwindling and the price of things like paper and ink becoming more expensive, subscribing can be a bit of an investment.

But what else happens?

The digital divide widens.

Newspapers held a place in our culture as moderately authoritative sources. As much as people suggest bias — and I don’t disagree — the newspaper is entrusted by us to investigate leads, hound sources, and write the package in as much a useful, user-centered manner as possible. People who work on newspapers are usually trained in the skills to interview people and to write (though debatably so, sometimes). Through America’s history, the newspaper was what allowed the community to connect and learn about issues impacting their community by people who make their (meager) living by finding out as much information as possible and digesting it for readers.

Reading the newspaper was a public and private activity. People on the plane, on the train, in the coffee shop, or in their own house would read or share the print paper and talk with one another about the stories. I remember when I worked in my community library through high school and people came in every morning and throughout the day to read the day’s paper. And, like the 80-year-old in the story linked above suggests, it was part of the morning routine, just like taking in that first cup of coffee. And now coffee’s companion will come in the form of something online.

How this impacts the digital divide — newspapers are more of a privilege now. No longer are people going to happen upon their local newspaper in a public space nor will they find the latest copy in their libraries or new stands. Sure, they can get the newspaper online, but if they don’t have a computer at home or they are out and about and don’t happen to have a laptop, iphone, kindle or other portable device at their hand, they’re further removed from an authoritative news source. They are further removed from their community, unable to connect simply because they do not have the means to connect.

While I’m aware that a newspaper can’t survive on love and hope alone, I wonder quite seriously how this issue can be resolved by the newspapers [who have an interest in getting the news out to everyone] and libraries [who have an interest in providing knowledge and information to all]. We further marginalize those who are older and not technology savvy, as well as those who are unable to access technology.

I wonder, too, how we can archive and preserve our cultural history. Since everything is digital and there are people who specialize in archiving born-digital material, the important work of holding onto the information will be handled well. But it lacks something that a printed paper has. Moreover, as technology changes, these digital archives face more and more challenges, much in the same way that the move to microfilm newspapers has caused challenges to access — libraries and repositories have to buck up and pay for expensive equipment that people are inexperienced with or are intimidated by, and people on staff must maintain a level of knowledge of technology that grows increasingly outdated.

I think we’re facing a really tough challenge here. It’s very sad to see these newspapers close their print operations, regardless of how much one understands the situations or how much one finds the print mode entirely outdated. People without technology access and/or skills continue to be pushed to the periphery and it poses serious challenges and difficulties for our social and cultural history. We’re living now in a time of change and challenge, and it’s essential we not only overcome these things now, but we plan and anticipate the future needs and difficulties, while keeping in mind that technology is a privilege and not a right. We should not forget that people without privilege DO have an equal right to knowledge and information as those of us with it.

Future of student news

This morning, I got this great article, courtesy of The Kept-Up Academic Librarian. If you don’t click, the jist of the story is that Rutgers’s independent student newspaper, The Daily Targum, is in the midst of a university debate — there is a referendum up to allow students the option to opt out of the $10/semester fee for the publication. Of course, this option could harm the paper significantly, as revenue will fall (and as a former small college newspaper editor, I am aware of how every $10 helps) and circulation statistics will fall, impacting advertisers. This then furthers the cycle of funding.

Although I sympathize with the student editors and writers on this issue, it brings up a lot of thoughts. First and foremost, it’s worth reading the petitition that the staff began here. What stands out to me in this petition is the following line:

“The future of an independent and daily campus newspaper lies solely in the hands of our president.”

This is wrong on so many levels. The truth is that the student fee-funded future of the newspaper lies solely in the hands of the president. The future of the independent newspaper lies solely in the hands of those who pour their blood, sweat, and tears into the paper on its regular basis (I believe The Targum is a six day a week paper). Yes, this is a terrible time for newspapers, as we’ve seen paper after paper filing for bankruptcy, but here’s the time that those in charge need to begin rethinking their service, delivery, and marketing strategies. Although I am dear to the print publication and see it as an important aspect of culture and history, I’m also highly acute to the fact that services like Twitter and newspapers that make all of their content available freely online are bringing the news in more timely, unique, and individualized manners.

Cornell College’s newspaper, the one in which I was charged with the task of co-editing, moved into the online sector my sophomore year of college (2004-2005). To this day, the digital edition is not entirely accessible, as it is a one man operation and hosted (FOR FREE) on an alumni’s web space. He has taken the responsibility to uploading it on a biweekly basis as his because he enjoys it and he sees the value in putting the news online, even if it is only minimal in content. Putting the entire paper online would definitely be possible, though it would run the paper some money in hosting and perhaps a little more in the time it takes for the web editor to upload it. Or maybe it would require that the editors of the paper actually learn how to publish for an online newspaper, rather than continue to hone their skills in products that are meant for print publication.

Other student newspapers, though, are completely online on a daily basis, and they are available freely! Updates are made throughout the day, and news is fresh, timely, and student centered. Of course, these are larger operations, such as the University of Texas’s Daily Texan, but it happens. While students pay a blanket student activity fee, it covers the cost of the operation. Students who want to work for the paper assumedly get a small stipend and/or credit for their work, and they get experience in producing news and content for a digital world.

Although it’s been a couple of years since I attended the Associated Collegiate Press (ACP) conference, I’m fairly confident that discussions there are centering around social media as the new model for delivering content and marketing. If libraries are doing it, most certainly the media itself is thinking about it. Personally, I get my news updates from two awesome newspaper Twitter accounts — Colonial Tribune (for my hometown news) and the Statesman (for my local news). I get the overview, and if the story merits more attention, I click the link they provide or I take the time to go to their well-developed websites to find more in-depth coverage. Moreover, the more journalism job descriptions I read, the more they are seeking candidates who know how to use these new tools or people interested in trying them out. The two years I did attend the ACP conference (spring and fall of 2006) each session and each speaker emphasized the need to know how to go digital because the jobs of our collective futures would not be in papers. We needed to think differently.

And now, three years later, the Daily Targum stands on the ground that the future of the newspaper lies solely in the hands of the president of Rutgers University.

The truth is, the future lies in their hands. A little research and networking, as well as a spirit of experimentation would be the lifeblood to save this paper. First, student editors and writers need to remove the idea from their mindsets that newspapers are print publications. Surprisingly, advertisers will still advertise, even in different service models, provided you can work with them on acquiring visitor demographics, which can be done easily through freely available tools like Google Analytics. As more students exist digitally (and by that I mean, their information is out there and they live out there in any number of different sites and services) it’s the responsibility of the news staff to think about how to find their audience and figure out what their audience is interested in actually reading. If there’s a big news event, it should be covered. But do students want yet another opinion on the awful cafeteria food? Likely not.

Watch what students/faculty/alumni/locals are doing and work to develop news and stories around things they’re doing or are interested in. Since the digital footprints are easier and easier to follow, do it! Move to new service models, such as Twittering, Blogging, or Wiki’ing on areas of interest. How about going to a student event and capturing digital video to entice people to come (or to entice people to go to your website!). Bonus points for archiving it digitally, too. Keep your online content fresh and regularly updated. Maintain ties with alumni who are invested in the survival of independent student news, as well as those who were once involved in the newspaper. Talk with advertisers about how much wider the potential audience is for digital content, and convince them that by going digital, they automatically increase their revenue through click throughs — in print, students have to type in a web address or Google it. Online, they can click. And let’s face it: we’re lazy and would much rather click than we would type. Additionally, advertising can be done through non-traditional means, too, as no longer are student newspapers bound by their geography.

Of course, this all requires work on the part of student news editors to think outside of the box. They have to think beyond what they are (or aren’t) taught in college classrooms or by former student editors. It requires substantial time investment but very little monetary investment. It might require moving away from the six day a week production full-scale production to three or four day production. But it would require regular updating, consistent movement, and a keen eye and ear for student interest. It would force upon students regular research and regular networking with other students and with professionals in the field.

Most importantly, it requires an end to the thought that one person or entity is responsible for the demise of the newspaper. The demise is in the traditional method of delivering content and services and in apathy. To gain real experience in the field, which is the cry of those circulating this petititon, then it’s time for these students to do their research, talk with their peers both on campus and on other campuses, and it’s time for them to consider taking risks in new methods of being “with the newspaper.” If — and this is highly, highly unlikely — all 3,690 Rutgers undergraduate students said they would absolutely not pay $10 for a newspaper, the paper is out only $36,900. That money can easily be attained through a little creative thinking, a willingness to take risks, stopping or abating the six day a week PRINT publication, and — at worst — a cut in the amount those working on the paper probably make (it’s pennies, I know, and as students it’s millions, but those dedicated to the causes which they claim to be will work for nothing).

But to throw a major bone to the students who likely do work tirelessly on the Daily Targum, this entire thing is quite a ridiculous proposal by the school. It’d be nearly impossible to monitor who does and does not receive the paper on a daily basis or to ensure those cheapskates not paying $10/semester do not access the paper online or pick one up left on a dining hall table. The proposition is perposterious. Likewise, in the grand scheme of the cost of college, the $10 fee is so small, most would likely still pay it. And if this passes, it’ll be interesting to see what other services the school will put up as optional fees — and for most students, I suspect there would be a great rally around optional fees that continue to float funds into the already huge budgets of university athletics that they either are not involved in, do not care about, nor wish to continue sponsoring. I suspect if that were the case, though, athletic directors would pull from their alumni base and show how they are somehow an asset to an entire student body in ways that a student newspaper could EVER be (and if you don’t sense my sarcasm there, I’ll be clear in stating I am 100% into the value a student paper that is forward thinking brings to any college/university campus).

I hope this issue is actually a service to the paper. It gets them press, and it gets them thinking about how to ensure their goals and purpose as a paper remain. I hope it causes them to think about the culturally and historically important role they and the newspaper play in a community, particularly such a niche community such that a university campus is.  As the second oldest student newspaper in the country, I think they have. Here’s an opportunity to stop thinking the future of independent student news lies in the hands of a heartless, money-hungry administrator but instead lies in future-thinking student leaders.

Where we stand now

Although I’ve been blogging since livejournal started up, this is my first real foray into something more coherent. I’m an avid reader, and I suspect much of my time in this blog will be about books, reading culture, and writing, as these are both my interests and my “expertise.”

As 2009 begins, it seems appropriate to think about some of the issues facing these particular interests - first and foremost, will they still be around? Books, sure, but perhaps not as we’re used to them. Newspapers? Maybe. Although I know I’d be sad to see the end of the printed newspaper, it’s becoming more and more obvious that the free model works and deters people (including myself, a self-proclaimed newspaper junkie) from purchasing print subscriptions. Reading? Although people claim reading and literacy are down, I think that might not actually be the case.

With digital participation increasing, the old models change. But change isn’t scary; it’s fascinating, and we’re building it.