
The Decline of College Newspapers - pseudolus
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/08/death-college-newspapers/595849/
======
8bitsrule
Another college medium under some financial/PR pressures is student-operated
college radio stations. About 10 years back, multiple stations on the air
since radio began were shut down, sold to NPR affiliates or religious
interests, or automated. However intentional, student voices (if not choices)
have been subdued or eliminated.

Some of the survivors went online-only; some remained on the air as well but
with a more ... managed sound. One site keeping on eye on this:
[https://www.radiosurvivor.com/learn-more/about-college-
radio...](https://www.radiosurvivor.com/learn-more/about-college-radio/)

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taylorhughes
I was editor of my daily college newspaper, which had $1m annual budget in
2006 funded entirely by student-sold advertising to local businesses. The
paper today is a shell of its former self, basically a weekly pamphlet. Its
demise happened on a delay vs professional newspapers due to a captive
audience in classrooms, but I think ubiquitous smartphones finally did it in
in the early 2010s.

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nataz
Shrug - I've seen the other side of this.

The key point to remember is that college newspapers are generally not
independent. It even mentions it in the article. Campus newspapers are funded
by the college. It's also college staff who serve as the mentors/oversight,
the college provides the space, offices, printing facilities, and equipment.
The newspaper may use the college name, motto, crest, or other identifying
information. Students may even earn course credit, so there is overhead with
academic reports, metrics, and associated staff.

When campus newspapers are pressured by the college, it's not a first
amendment issue. Just like HN has the legal right to moderate it's forum, so
does the administration have the right to moderate a campus newspaper.

None of this matters if they are reporting on what's for for lunch, but what
about when the paper starts to report on more sensitive issues? Topics like
sexual assault, criminal activity, HR actions, etc. all carry significant
liability and risk. Are they newsworthy, maybe, but even large institutional
papers like the Washington Post or the New York Times makes mistakes on what
or how something is reported. And, when one of those big institutional papers
does get something wrong, they can be sued. Bad/irresponsible reporting has
serious consequences both for the institution and the individuals involved.

Colleges treat campus papers as a learning opportunity. That said, If you
screw up a coding assignment, it's a learning moment that doesn't really have
any external impact. Journalism by definition has an external impact, and of
course a college is going to be more risk adverse.

Im all for a robust and well executed campus newspaper, but if they want to be
independent, they should be run as independent institutions with their own
funding and resources.

I know it rubbed the student the wrong way, but ... welcome to the real world.
No one is stopping the reporting of news. Anyone can fire up a blog, website
or a podcast. Surprise, people don't like paying for things that make them
look bad, or are potentially risky endeavors with little upside.

~~~
murgindrag
It's a bit more murky than that.

HN is a commercial web site.

Colleges are funded by taxpayer dollars, charitable donations, and student
tuition. Colleges claim to grant academic freedom, part of which is free
speech.

Would you be comfortable paying taxes for an NSF who than funds universities
who use that money to fabricate research and cover it up? Lying is not a
crime, and as you pointed out, there are many forms of hiding information
which aren't illegal.

What if the university is directly run by the state, as many are?

~~~
nataz
Not a lawyer, but my understanding after lots of reviews with people who are
lawyers, is the law pretty clear here.

First, there is no such thing as academic freedom in the US Constitution.

As for the NSF example, lying IS a crime depending on the circumstances. So is
fraud. In the case of an NSF Grant, it can be a federal crime.

One of my key frustrations when talking about this is the complete lack of
understanding of free speech issues in the US by people who claim to be the
defenders of free speech (not you the poster, but certainly folks in the
article).

Free speech as a legal concept doesn't apply. Even if you wanted to tie it
back to State Constitutions (because some schools are State schools), in this
case it is the State institution that is limiting its own speech. The paper
belongs to the school, not a private entity. The government is allowed to
moderate it's own speech.

That's the point about needing an independent and free press. State run news
is the opposite of free speech.

~~~
murgindrag
I understand the bounds of laws as written, but I think this is confusing
several different issues:

* "Free speech" is a broad human right e.g. written into the UN Declaration of Human Rights

* "The First Amendment" is a short piece of text written a couple hundred years ago

* That text places a minimum bar on what the government may and may not do based on two hundred years of interpretation, some of which may be correct and some not. We can refer to this as "prevailing legal interpretation of the first amendment"

* Finally, even private universities receive a tax exemption as 501(c)3 not-for-profit, and federal subsidizes through research funding and tuition subsidies. Citizens donate to universities in the belief that there are sufficient checks-and-balances for concepts like academic freedom to make them forces for good. This gives the government broad rights and responsibilities to regulate them. We can define what the government ought to do as "good public policy."

For news.ycombinator.com, the government, with relatively narrow exceptions,
has neither the right nor the responsibility to restrict the site operator. If
Paul Graham wants to limit content to nerds discussions, albeit filtering out
anything over-critical of Google, that's his right under the 1st amendment.

On the other hand, the government can and should have comprehensive checks-
and-balances around universities. There is a growing number of scandals,
representing a growing level of corruption (yes, I understand that I did not
justify this statement -- it'd be going down a long rabbit hole). As good
public policy, the government has a responsibility to manage that. If a
universities wants to exist where millions of dollars of alumni donations are
funneled into administrator pockets, research is fabricated, and
administrators go to barely-legal Epstinesque parties, that's okay too -- just
not with 501(c)3 status, Pell Grants, and NSF funding.

By the way, the government often does NOT have rights to limit its own speech
in the same way a private corporation does. Government employees are generally
NOT under NDA, generally cannot be punished for e.g. writing newspaper
articles or whistle-blowing, and I can get many types of internal discussions
under FOIA. There are complex legal boundaries here, and I'm not trying to
convey any sort of absolute rights or protections, but those contours are
quite different than HN as well.

[https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-sued-people-he-
blocked...](https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-sued-people-he-blocked-
twitter-constitution-liberals-636296)

------
impendia
I got curious and googled Rebecca Liebson's name. Seems like she's off to an
extremely promising start in her journalism career.

It seems like an interesting variant of the Streisand effect is at work here:
nowadays, if you piss off powerful administrators simply by reporting facts,
this can earn you nationwide attention. Which gives would-be journalists have
a powerful incentive to do exactly that.

~~~
murgindrag
I think this is missing the big picture. For every Liebson, there are
thousands who are threatened and intimidated. Colleges control your grades,
your housing, your graduation, and in most cases, most of your digital
information (most students naively trust college information systems). The
Streisand effect works once, and barely that. Front page news fades after a
few weeks.

Universities are funded by a mixture of taxpayer dollars, tuition, and
charitable donations. Journalism acts as a check-and-balance against crime,
corruption, embezzlement, sexual harassment, discrimination, data fabrication,
and a slew of other issues.

When transparency disappears, all of those increase.

~~~
impendia
> I think this is missing the big picture.

I'm not disputing the threat and intimidation factor, I'm just saying there is
also a countervailing force. In particular, any "media relations officer" who
tries to pull this kind of shit is also taking a big risk.

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perardi
I have nothing to add but a nostalgic, elegaic sigh.

I got my first real job in design at Illini Media, the then-independent and
now it’s-complicated publisher at the University of Illinois. Working on a
deadline, communicating with client, solving bonkers print issues, in the end
I think it taught me a lot more than school itself did. (You know what I’m not
nostalgic for? Newsprint dot gain. Like printing on toilet paper.)

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cafard
The decline also comes from the shrinking of ad revenue, just as with all
newspapers.

~~~
blueboo
No, it really doesn't. Ad revenue is not typically a significant part of the
budget of college newspapers.

~~~
ghaff
My knowledge of the general case is pretty old. But in my experience it
depends. For most campus newspapers, if it's not advertising (or
subscriptions?--is that a thing any longer?) then that means they're supported
by the university which creates its own issues. Some are supported through
donations but I'm pretty sure that's not the norm.

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nateburke
How hard/expensive would it be to print 10k copies per week of a simple
broadside?

I am wondering how hard it would be to disentangle at least the distribution
part of the student press from administrative concerns.

~~~
nataz
I just checked Staples. 14 cents a page for black and white. There are
discounts for bulk. So about 140 bucks a month needed. Not too bad.

That's the beauty of technology. 15 years ago doing this without the schools
help would have been difficult. Between the internet, smartphones, and modern
software tools building an actual free press is within reach of lots of
people.

In hindsight, it would be nice to see academic institutions help set up these
kinds of projects rather then fund their own. Teach the tooling and the
process rather than produce the product.

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jeremysalwen
specsucks!!

