College Media Matters

A vulgar term for the female genitalia appeared late last week on the front page of The Cornell Daily Sun’s final issue of the semester. The word (it rhymes with bunt– see screenshot below) was apparently inserted during an end-of-the-year party held in the Sun’s offices after final vetting. It changed the job title of a Cornell University administrator, making him “the Senior Associate Dean of the College of Arts and C—.” (Hat tip IvyGate.)

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At the recent Florida Scholastic Press Association conference in Orlando, Kansas State University journalism professor Kelly Furnas fired up the student attendees with a session outlining the things they are most likely not doing (but should be) with their news outlets online. Furnas, who also serves as the executive director of the Journalism Education Association, aimed to help student editors “drive up traffic, increase reader engagement, and . . . educate your staff about Web techniques.”

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Odd news out of Gainesville, Fla.: A man recently set fire to copies of The Independent Florida Alligator at the University of Florida that were stacked in the back of a delivery van. As the paper itself reported, rescue workers quickly extinguished the blaze, which did not cause damage to the van. No one was hurt. The suspect is at-large. The motive is unknown.

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As exams overtake most of academia, students are weighing in with way too many related memes.  In general, a few months after memes mania kicked off among students at schools nationwide, the meme-ing seems to be continuing.  Almost all related Facebook pages remain active and boast extremely high ‘Likes’ totals.  And most still feature a [...]

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In a new column so meta it almost explodes, Red & Black staffer Julia Carpenter writes about the rigors of writing a column on deadline.  In between repeated word count updates, the University of Georgia junior compares journalistic deadline writing to drug abuse and calls it “one of the bloodiest, most soul-eviscerating activities known to [...]

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The Reporter, the country’s only full-color weekly college magazine, is suddenly drowning in uncertainty and bracing for a redefinition that may cut the full-color, weekly or magazine parts out of its identity. The publication’s host school, the Rochester Institute of Technology, just announced that it is selling an in-house printing press that has long published the Reporter at “reduced rates and [with] donated paper.” An arrangement with an outside press will likely leave the Reporter “unable to maintain the volume of magazines produced . . . at a rate that fits within its budget.”

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The Daily O’Collegian at Oklahoma State University is enjoying marginal success with its metered pay wall a bit more than a year after enacting it. At the start of spring semester 2011, the paper became the first U.S. student media outlet to charge a subset of readers for its content online, requiring a $10 yearly [...]

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If you want bad news with a college connection, start with The Review. The student newspaper at the University of Delaware is superb at spotlighting the seamier, sadder, and less legal goings-on at UD and the surrounding city of Newark. The top headlines rundown on the paper’s homepage is unlike any other I’ve seen within collegemediatopia– almost always teasing out a rash of crime or sudden death stories. The bottom line: While UD may not seem like the safest, most carefree school to attend, it’s clear no bad news goes unreported.

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Roughly a year after “one of the deadliest, costliest, and most widespread tornado outbreaks ever to hit the United States” struck Tuscaloosa, The Crimson White at the University of Alabama has put together a comprehensive multi-platform news package reflecting on the storm’s impact and the challenges CW staffers faced covering it. – Last April, the [...]

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A is for Ambassador. B is for Band Member. C is for Chess. D is for Dubstep. E is for Event Planner. F is for Forensics. G is for Guns. . . . Those are the first seven headlines in a yearlong 26-part series currently nearing completion in The College Heights Herald at Western Kentucky University. “WKU A to Z” features students and a few faculty whose side-jobs, club activities, life passions, sexual identities, genetic anomalies, and professional goals can all be categorized under different letters of the alphabet.

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Late last week, a Jewish student at Loyola Marymount University discovered a swastika and the words “Jew Die” written with a Sharpie marker on his dorm room door. The Los Angeles Loyolan, the student newspaper at the Catholic school, reported on the incident the next day. On Sunday, staff added a photo of the marked-up door to the online story.

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A Cornell University employee recently stole the spoof section from every copy of a Cornell Daily Sun issue available for pick-up within a prominent campus building. The staffer’s aim was apparently “to prevent parents and prospective students visiting for Cornell Days [a special program for recently-admitted students] from reading them.”

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The Setonian, Seton Hall University: “It is no secret that the journalism profession has constantly evolved over the past few decades. What was once dominated by personalities such as Edward R. Murrow or Walter Kronkite has now taken many forms. From professionals to citizen journalists to student journalists, the practice of journalism is continuing to grow, yet many fear it has ceased to prosper. However, it should be made perfectly clear that journalism is alive and well, especially the practices of student journalists, who continue to thrive and prosper, as is evident by the numerous awards and accolades bestowed upon student media.”

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The Comment at Bridgewater State University is facing “an angry backlash” from its readers and overseers for naming a rape victim in an article published earlier this month. A related backlash is aimed at BSU’s president for allegedly threatening to “shut down the paper” and cutting off access to all school officials unless the article or the victim’s name is removed online. The paper’s faculty adviser has also been fired.

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As I noted in a post late last month, student newspapers are struggling financially.  The decade-long plights of the professional press have at last weaved their way into the land of collegemediatopia.  If not quite a time of reckoning for some campus papers, we have definitely entered a prolonged period of profound change– cutbacks, weary [...]

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