Posts Tagged ‘Barack Obama’

Student Newspaper Obama Re-election Front Pages: ‘A President Prevails’

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 7, 2012 | 1 Comment »

Along with a number of stirring images and iconic front pages designed and published today by the professional press, the student press has delivered some memorable, historic page ones as well.

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Below is a screenshot sampling college newspaper post-election front pages, including from papers in battleground states and states in which a majority of voters did not support President Obama’s re-election plans.

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Please email or tweet me to add your front page to the mix.

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The Daily Tar Heel, University of North Carolina

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The Daily Princetonian, Princeton University

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The State News, Michigan State University

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The Michigan Daily, University of Michigan

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The Pipe Dream, Binghamton University

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The Ball State Daily News, Ball State University

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The News Record, University of Cincinnati

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The Loyolan, Loyola Marymount University

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The Appalachian, Appalachian State University

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The Loquitur, Cabrini College

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The University Daily Kansan, University of Kansas

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The Oklahoma Daily, University of Oklahoma

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Indiana Daily Student, Indiana University

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The Torch, St. John’s University

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The Oracle, University of South Florida

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The Daily Illini, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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The Daily Reveille, Louisiana State University

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The Observer, Notre Dame University

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The Cavalier Daily, University of Virginia

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The Collegiate Times, Virginia Tech

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The Daily Collegian, Penn State University

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The Minnesota Daily, University of Minnesota

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The Daily Nebraskan, University of Nebraska Lincoln

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The Daily Toreador, Texas Tech University

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The Columbia Daily Spectator, Columbia University

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The Daily Mississippian, University of Mississippi

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The Student Printz, University of Southern Mississippi

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The Daily Texan, University of Texas at Austin

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The Daily Iowan, University of Iowa

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The Daily of the University of Washington

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The Daily Campus, Southern Methodist University

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The Lantern, Ohio State University

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The Yale Daily News, Yale University

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The Daily Northwestern, Northwestern University

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The Daily Orange, Syracuse University

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Pitt News Pushes for President Obama Reelect, Citing Decent Record in Face of ‘Impulsive Obstructionists’

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on October 31, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

The editorial board of The Pitt News at the University of Pittsburgh has endorsed President Barack Obama for reelection, in recognition of his moderate success governing in the face of an opposition party comprised of “men and women who are nothing more than impulsive obstructionists.”

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In an endorsement editorial published Monday, the board notes, in part, “No one would want to repeat the last four years.  Yes, the economy has begun a slow recovery from recession. The stock market is up, and unemployment has finally dipped beneath the level President Barack Obama inherited from the Bush administration. . . . And while Obama’s record has often been a disappointment– he promised to close Guantanamo Bay, to end unilateral drone strikes and executive signing statements and to make progress on global warming– by signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, fighting for a more fair tax distribution and standing up for equal marriage rights, Obama has shown he will fight for the underrepresented.”

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The ultimate rationale for the board’s Obama support seems to be the sense that with the sitting president the country can at least know what to expect over the next four years.  As the editorial concludes, “With Obama, we can look forward to more moderate, at times progressive, policies and administrative continuity. With a Romney administration, we will see a huge question mark with unpredictable consequences.”

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Related

College Media Podcast #3: RNC, Student Newspaper Presidential Endorsements & Gaming the News

Onion Article Spoofs Student Newspaper Endorsement of Obama

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NYU’s Washington Square News Publishes Standout Special Election Issue

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on October 29, 2012 | 2 Comments »

On Friday, The Washington Square News at New York University published an excellent special issue focused on numerous facets of the rapidly concluding presidential campaign.

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As Amy Zhang, the student paper’s web managing editor, tells me, “Our goal was to move past the horse race media coverage of the election that is such an unproductive component of the political theatre during an election year.  For this issue, the WSN wanted to provide our NYU community with a comprehensive guide to all the issues that affect our generation.”

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In an introductory editorial featured in the issue, Zhang reminds readers, “There is still a week left until the Nov. 6 Election Day, but that one day will decide the next four years of our lives.  In this issue, we have featured the topics that matter most to you, like health care, the economy, and financial aid.  We have outlined the platforms, ideals, and opinions of each candidate, and we haven’t forgotten other power players: the third parties, vice presidents, and first ladies.  We . . . [also] haven’t forgotten the goodies, like best celebrity tweets or election movies, that are a staple of the political theater.  We lay this information out before you as a tool to build your own truth.”

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I’m a sucker for quality profiles, so my favorite portion: “Political Portraits,” a quartet of pieces focused on students active in various political causes– a reminder that issues raised by Romney and Obama extend far beyond the election cycle and campaign trail.

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Click here or on the screenshots below to check out the issue.

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Anti-Romney College Football Ad in Ohio State Lantern Grabs Eyeballs, Press Attention

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 9, 2012 | 2 Comments »

A full-page advertisement in the recent Homecoming issue of The Lantern at Ohio State University has stirred attention for serving up a simple reminder to OSU diehards and alums: Presidential candidate Mitt Romney is a fan of the University of Michigan Wolverines, a heated OSU football rival.

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Student press, meet the political silly season.  As Deadspin asked, “Do Buckeyes fans hate Michigan enough to change who they vote for purely based on the candidate’s support for University of Michigan athletics?”  Don’t doubt it.  According to one football blogger, “Stranger things have happened.”

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The ad ran last Friday, adjacent to the start of the Lantern sports section.  It features a black-and-white portrait shot of Romney looking especially earnest, overlaid with a quote expressing his Michigan love– pulled from remarks he made last year.  It’s an unsurprising loyalty of course, given he is a native of the state.

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The ad’s creators: members of the Ohio Democratic Party.  Given its appearance a month before Election Day at a major university in a battleground state, it has garnered outsized news coverage.  The Atlantic Wire sees it as a sign of tightening poll numbers, noting, “Democrats are clearly feeling the heat if this is the level they’ll sink to swing voters. It would have said terrible things about [Romney's] character if he did schtup for the Buckeyes just to get votes. Is nothing in this world sacred?”

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The Detroit Free Press seems especially unimpressed with the football tie-in tactic, beginning a related write-up with an Ohio potshot: “Nice to know we can count on our neighbors to the south to come up with a completely pointless tie-in between the presidential race and the University of Michigan-Ohio State football rivalry. . . . But really, Obama and Romney are a couple of guys who spent their undergraduate and graduate years in the Ivy League.  What the heck do they know about football?“

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Barack Obama, College Journalist

Posted in Journalism, Magazine Journalism, tagged , , , , , on January 18, 2009 | 1 Comment »

More than 25 years before acceding to the most powerful position in all the land, Barack Obama was a student journalist with an anti-war bent.  In “Breaking The War Mentality,” a March 1983 piece for The Sundial, a weekly magazine at Columbia University, Obama embeds his own obvious anti-war outlook into a profile of a pair of student groups whose names define their own positions: Arms Race Alternatives (ARA) and Students Against Militarism (SAM).

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At the start and close of the 1,800-word piece, written when he was 21, he argues:

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Most students do not have first hand knowledge of war.  Military violence has been a vicarious experience, channeled into our minds through television, film, and print. . . . But then, there are some things we shouldn’t have to live through in order to avoid the experience.

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http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/2009/01/custom_1231882487042_barackstory2.jpeg

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It is a fair piece of student journalism, well-written (a bit pretentious and wordy) and adaquately reported (although outwardly biased in tone and source selection).  I found it interesting mainly because it is truly an early published example of the detached reasonableness that has so come to define the man who is about to be president.  And so Obama’s path is obvious: college journalist —> White House. :)

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(This will be my last post before the big day, so happy inauguration and safe travels to all those crowding into D.C.!  Sixteen years ago, I was in the city with my grandmother for Clinton’s inauguration.  I remember frigid weather, not enough port-a-potties, and a citywide idealism unlike anything I’d experienced before firsthand.  I am sure there will be more of all those things come Tuesday.)

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Obama endorsement stirs “mini-uproar” at Abilene Christian

Posted in College Media, Journalism, Student Newspaper, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on November 18, 2008 | 2 Comments »

A presidential endorsement of Barack Obama run in The Optimist student newspaper at Abilene Christian University has lit a California-sized wildfire among ACU alums and others connected with the school that continues to burn post-election.

 

The Optimist

 

Most are angry at the paper’s support for a candidate whose abortion and gay marriage stances are worrying to conservative Christians.  According to the Optimist‘s top editor: “Even after the election, we’re still getting e-mails.  They use all caps in the e-mails to be angry.”

 

The editorial came in late October after the nine-member editorial board voted five to four in favor of Obama.  The president of the university publicly stated that his main concern is that the preference of five students out of the 5,000 who are enrolled will place the university at-large in a negative light among its McCain-supporting alums and supporters.

 

As a guest column in the nearby Abilene News-Reporter notes, the controversy raises a larger question of whether a student newspaper with such a local focus should be tackling presidential-sized politics at all.  In my opinion, yes, absolutely.  Student readers may dig all-things-local first but the college rag can also play a bigger part in upping their national consciousness.  Student pubs may not have intimate access to the presidential candidates but with the glut of news available on every minutia of modern elections it’s perfectly reasonable for editors to wade through what’s out there and take a stand. 

 

It’s also important to remember: Endorsements, like all staff editorials, are not quantum physics.  They are simply discussion-starters.  It’s the paper adopting a stance, laying out its argument, and encouraging feedback, in the spirit of conversation not antagonization.  To this end, the passion embedded in the cynicism that has greeted the Optimist‘s endorsement is a sign that it was successful.    

 

By the way, here’s part of the endorsement, which I found to be very well-reasoned and the antithesis of inflammatory:

 

Two qualified men emerged from the exhausting nominating process as their party’s choice for the office of the President of the United States. . . . Sen. Barack Obama is a man whose rise in politics has taken the lawyer with a “funny name and big ears” to the top of his party. Obama’s unique American success story has reignited hope in government, and he promises to bring the change most Americans say they want to see in the White House. . . . In this precarious moment in American history, this country needs change. We believe Obama is the right man to bring that change, and is more prepared than his opponent to guide this country out of the perilous waters we have been sailing for the past eight years.

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Racist Obama Leaflets Slipped Into Lehigh’s Brown & White

Posted in College Media, Journalism, Journalism Ethics, Student Newspaper, tagged , , , , , , , , , on November 14, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

“Your president is black. How does that make you feel?”

 

A leaflet with those words were slipped inside hundreds of copies of The Brown and White student newspaper at Pennsylvania’s Lehigh University last week, without editors’ knowledge or permission. The paper’s EIC noted: “Probably someone came around and stuffed them in into each copy. We’ve checked with our printer and with our distributors and there was nothing in it when they distributed it.”

 

Racist Leaflet

 

The leaflets’ message is vague, but its overtones have been taken as racially insulting. According to CBS News in Philadelphia, the culprits are still on the loose, but the inserts have been linked to other incidents of alleged racism on campus, including slurs directed at black students. A university forum was held Tuesday to address the controversy.

 

Beyond the leaflets’ possible racist slant, I was most interested in reading about the creators’ preferred means of delivery for their message: the student newspaper. In a backward way, the leaflets are simply one more symbol of the power of the college press. The individuals who concocted them considered the papers the most effective way of reaching the university audience (and stirring up a mini-media storm and campus furor to boot). A message to those responsible: Next time, stand behind your words. Look into buying ad space or, better yet, pen a guest column!

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Columbia J-Students Get Exclusive Access to Obama Rally

Posted in Broadcast Journalism, College Media, Journalism, New Media, Student Newspaper, tagged , , , , , , , on November 8, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

Check out the behind-the-scenes videos that Columbia College Chicago j-students captured during Obama’s already-historic Grant Park Election Night rally.  Undergrads working with Columbia’s student newspaper and student radio station were the only college student media granted official access to the day-and-night event, which the student paper called “Obamapalooza”

 

The Chronicle

 

Only two videos are featured on the site.  After concluding viewing of one of the two, more become available to select via the YouTube listing.

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Obama Cartoon in Daily Wildcat Called ‘Racist, Offensive’

Posted in College Media, Journalism, Journalism Ethics, Student Newspaper, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 7, 2008 | 2 Comments »

October 2012: Arizona Daily Wildcat Apologizes for ‘Fruit Roll Up’ Cartoon Depicting Homophobia, Child Abuse

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Charges of racism have been levied against The Arizona Daily Wildcat at the University of Arizona after the paper ran a political cartoon in its Wednesday issue that included the N-word.

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The syndicated cartoon, headlined in part “Stories from the Campaign Trail,” recounted an actual recent event in which a Pennsylvania couple told a canvasser they intended to vote for “the n—–” for president, in respect to their apparent support for Barack Obama.  A screenshot of the cartoon is below, with the offending word in two bottom panels blurred.

The controversial Daily Wildcat cartoon

According to The Arizona Daily Star, Wildcat editors say the cartoon was run by mistake.  Critics are livid.  A pair of packed-house meetings have been held, with university students, staff, and community members demanding an apology and answers.  An e-mail signed by student leaders also  has been making the rounds calling for a reading and advertising boycott.

The professional cartoonist, who is African-American, wrote in a statement published in the Wildcat:

The strip is based on some true incidents that happened to canvassers in some battleground states.  Is it offensive?  Yes.  Is it sad?  Sure.  But that’s the reality of the United States and this very unique election.

OK, fair enough.  But there’s reality and then there’s news judgment.  It was Wednesday November 5th.  The country had just elected its first African-American president.  Amid all the economic woes and military strife, Obama’s big win represented a contemporary and historical moment of profound hope and change for the country.  If there is one day in which the offensiveness, the N-word, the underbelly of this hope and change could and should have been left out, it was the day after the election.

Running the cartoon appears to truly be an honest mistake on the Wildcat‘s part, and kudos to the editor in chief for owning up.  As she said, “The timing was absolutely horrible.  You want your content to be relevant and match the news of the day.”

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Obama-mania Hits College Press!

Posted in College Media, Journalism, Student Newspaper, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on November 6, 2008 | 1 Comment »

One consequence of America’s historic election: The public has been gobbling up newspapers like collectors’ items.  CNN reported that post-election print newspaper editions nationwide sold out uber-fast, prompting some papers to even restart their presses(!).

 

College print newspapers also witnessed emptier-than-usual newsstands and stacks.  For example, the EIC of The Maneater at the University of Missouri blogged yesterday that spare copies of the paper were scarce.  “The news is hard to find today,” he wrote.  “Campus readership bins across campus are bare after last night’s elections.”  A screenshot of a portion of the paper’s front page is below.

 

The Maneater

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“Little Campus, Big Election”

Posted in College Media, Journalism, New Media, Student Newspaper, tagged , , , , , , , on November 4, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

Election Day.  How much of an impact has the college press actually had on (potential) student voters?

 

http://media.collegepublisher.com/media/paper1232/stills/u5oospd0.png http://media.collegepublisher.com/media/paper1232/stills/5rryhx7u.png

The Michigan Review collected thoughts from a few student journalists and individuals who love them.  Three highlights:

 

Ben French, general manager of U-Wire: “College newspapers serve as a major news source for students . . . across the county, which is why the Obama campaign has hosted several conference calls with college media outlets.  Even with falling newspaper readership, college newspaper readership rates are still in the high nineties. People are still picking up a newspaper on the way to class, grabbing a paper that someone left in their seat. College newspapers are able to gain access to college-aged consumers.”

 

Jamie Klein, Daily Nebraskan staff writer: “The press conferences have helped us bring this year’s presidential election closer to students. Seeing coverage in their student newspaper makes the election easier to grasp because our articles are focused to students and issues that students care about.”

 

The Review‘s own take: “College media writers are having their work syndicated by outlets such as CBS, Politico, and TMZ.com, and presidential campaigns have taken notice. The campaigns of John McCain and Barack Obama have made young voters a priority and the Obama campaign in particular has worked to contact and engage college media outlets, despite the lack of numerical support to show that college students will respond.”

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Daily Bruin First College Paper to Endorse Obama

Posted in College Media, Journalism, Student Newspaper, tagged , , , , , , , , on October 16, 2008 | 1 Comment »

According to UWire, The Daily Bruin at UCLA is the first U.S. college newspaper to support Barack Obama’s presidential bid in the general election, a selection that editors write was obvious:

 

[R]eally, was there any other rational choice? . . . The last thing we need is a maverick like Gov. Palin swapping hockey-mom tales with foreign leaders . . . What America needs now is a leader who is willing to make sacrifices and to accept responsibility for tough decisions in order to save our economy.  We are not claiming that Obama has all of the answers.  However, he has shown himself to be a capable leader and is pushing for progressive social programs that could, if brought to fruition, greatly benefit demographics in America that have been historically underserved, including throughout the last eight years.

 

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