If writing for the
school newspaper is good experience for a career in journalism, then dealing
with censorship, administrative pressure, funding trouble, and the host of
issues that affect those in student media is indispensable experience for a life
in today’s media.
Student media issues
are often dismissed as unimportant (“You
have to understand I’ve never taken the student paper very seriously — these are
kids,” says John Schulz, the Dean of Boston University’s communications
college). They are often
considered insular to the world of higher education, relegated to the trite
analogy of the university “bubble.” A serious examination, though, reveals that
these so-called “student issues” are not only significant in their own right,
but have profound implications for and parallels to the broader mainstream
media.
“College journalists
are breaking stories, shaping news coverage and making law that all journalists
(and all who care about the profession) should be interested in,” says Mark
Goodman, Director of the
Student Press Law Center. Sara Gruen, the coordinator of
the
Independent Press Association's Campus Journalism Project,
takes the role of the student journalist even further, claiming that
“campus papers can save journalism.” “As mergers and budget cuts squeeze
local papers ever tighter,” writes Gruen, “indy campus reporting has an
increasing role in documenting local news.”
Many of the most
prestigious professionals in journalism today began their careers with college
publications. As a student at
Pomona College, executive editor of the
New York Times Bill Keller founded an independent newspaper called The
Collage. David Remnick, before becoming editor of
The New Yorker, worked at Princeton University’s
Nassau Weekly. In the Vietnam Era, student newspapers like the
Michigan Daily (and its Editor-in-Chief
Tom Hayden) were instrumental in fomenting and interpreting the mass social
movements that centered on youth.
While student
journalists, as Goodman points out, are breaking their own stories, they are
also gaining experiences that will influence their careers in the mainstream
media, experiences that can potentially affect people all over the world. This
is one reason that student media issues transcend the campus walls and can have
far-reaching ramifications.
While the mainstream
media is often criticized for succumbing to administration pressure and not
vociferously questioning government policies and assertions - most notably,
perhaps, with Bush administration claims of WMD in Iraq and an Iraq-9/11 link -
the student press has often displayed the courage and principles to stand up to
what it feels are unfair or repressive decisions made by the school
administration.
At
Essex County College’s Observer,
students raised $1,100 to publish their own graduation issue after Susan
Mulligan, the Dean of Students, shut down printing. While Dean Mulligan claimed
that the newspaper could not print because it lacked an official advisor, the
Editor-in-Chief, Melinda Hernandez, asserted that the real gripe was over the
critical content of a past issue. The staff of the Observer turned the
issue into a “bill of rights” edition.
Censorship and funding
are two issues that most often affect student media. Dean Mulligan was able to
cancel printing because the Observer is financially supported through the
college’s payroll system, allowing officials to cancel payment.
The manner in which a
publication is funded was a central issue in the case
Hosty v. Carter (7th
Cir., 2005), in which three
staff member of
Governors State University’s The Innovator sued the university after
Dean Patricia Carter impeded publication and demanded prior review because of
articles that had been critical of the administration. The Court found that it
was unclear whether the decision in
Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, which held that high school
publications could be regulated by school officials, applied to colleges,
effectively absolving Dean Carter.
Colleges have become the focus of several battles over
free speech, particularly in relation to speech codes, controversial
speakers/groups on campus, and student media. This sort of turmoil can be
threatening for a college official who is given the task of maintaining a
positive public image for the school to attract both students and donations.
At
Peru State,
two faculty advisors to the Peru State Times have been fired by the
President, Ben Johnson, allegedly because the paper had been critical of the
administration. According to Mark Goodman, it is not uncommon for school
officials to say, “ ‘We don’t like what they’re publishing, so we’re going to do
something about it.’ It turns a student newspaper into a PR sheet.”
But
clashes with the administration are not the only problem student journalists
face. The student newspapers at California's
Evergreen Valley College,
Ventura College, and
Oxnard College
have all been discontinued due to funding problems. Other publications
struggle to stay afloat by dedicating an increasing amount of space to
advertising and forming corporate partnerships that may dilute student voices.
While Gruen heralds the student media as a catalyst in a
media revolution, students are not immune to the same criticisms that are often
flung at the corporate media. Steven Dick, an Assistant Professor of Radio-TV
at
Southern Illinois
University, says, “I have seen far too much irresponsible journalism
come from college press….I have seen privacy invasions, misrepresentation, heavy
handed opinion in news articles, and outright defamation.”
This
is the same indictment that is often leveled at the “blogosphere” and other
forums for citizen journalism – a lack of experience and oversight can result in
a lack accountability and responsibility. This is especially dangerous when one
manipulates the media with an underlying agenda.
Such a situation arose at
Wesleyan University
in Connecticut in the spring of 2006. Wesleyan, which has for a
long time been
consistently described as a left-leaning and politically active
school, was well represented by students at the “March
for Peace, Justice, and Democracy” in New York City on April 29th.
When the student newspaper,
The Argus,
covered the story, the right-wing sentiments of the then Editor-in-Chief, who
had previously written an article proclaiming his conservatism, were clearly
displayed: the picture chosen out of the many options to accompany the story was
one of a giant banner that said
“The Bush Regime
Engineered 9/11.” By painting a massive demonstration of over
350,000 people as a forum for paranoid extremists, the Editor of a student
newspaper at a small liberal arts school used a trick dirtier than Fox News ever
would.
It is
a mistake to callously label the student media as either irresponsible amateurs
or as trend-setting saviors. Students are seizing an opportunity to make their
own media using every method available to them, whether it is a blog, a
self-published 'zine, a podcast, etc. The do-it-yourself attitude and the
democratized means of production have transformed how we think about media and
have helped many students become active producers, not passive consumers, of
information.
The
nuanced issues that affect the student media are the same issues that affect the
mainstream media, the future of journalism, the way we see the world, and our
role in the world. It is not enough to call the student media the leaders and
voices of tomorrow without recognizing the tremendous role that they are playing
today.