What’s the Best Way to Keep College Newspapers Viable?
A budding journalist is kvetching about the fact that Gannett wants to buy a college newspaper in Ft. Collins Colorado.
Student news outlets are designed to be independent voices for the campuses they serve. Having corporate management, which is one of the possibilities currently being talked about for The Collegian, would destroy the nature of the student-news industry.
He asks a number of questions, but the heart of his post is how can a college newspaper be independent when owned by a “media-conglomerate.”
I don’t know the details in Ft. Collins, but the newspaper probably gets some funding from the college, either directly, or indirectly from the college charging some kind of fee to the students.
It seems to me that young Vogts has misread the situation.
Here’s how I see it: the newspaper is currently answering to a master who has no motivation or compunction to preserve a free press on campus. OTOH, Gannett practices their dedication to a free press everyday.
As far as the financial aspects of which is better - getting money from a college (or it’s students) or getting money as a well run business. That’s an easy answer. Every state is under pressure to spend education wisely. Many lawmakers would suggest that running a newspaper that is often critical of the college and/or the government, is an expense that is unnecessary.
One more point regarding the hazards of being owned by a “media conglomerate.” While it is true that many media companies decimate acquisitions to meet the debt payments, Gannett has demonstrated this is not their modis operandi.
I think every college newspaper would be better off with ownership that has no financial ties to the college or university it covers.
January 30th, 2008 at 7:55 am
Mr. Mark Van Patten,
I appreciate you reading my posting about the CSU and Gannett situation. I understand what you are saying in this post. It is not good for a student newspaper to have financial ties to its college or university, but my worry is deeper than that.
What happens if Gannett sells some of its holdings? What would happen to The Collegian then?
Also, don’t the student reporters run the risk of becoming indoctrinated by the philosophy of the company? Could this not put the blinders on these journalists so they don’t develop their own journalism philosophies?
Furthermore, if media companies begin acquiring student newspapers, won’t the student press become a variable “farm team” for big media?
I don’t know. To me, this all seems quite negative and worrisome for student journalists. I understand some of the financial reasons for it, but those benefits don’t seem to outweigh the negatives posed by the situation in general.
So what do you think?
I would really like to hear from you and try to learn more about this situation through your opinion on it.
Regards,
Todd Vogts
http://voiceofthevogts.wordpress.com
January 30th, 2008 at 8:17 am
1. Gannett sells: Collegian has new owner. alternate: College funding falls: program cut altogether.
2. Indoctrination: Yes, that’s what newspapers do, some call it training.
2a. Blinders: Don’t be a sheep.
3. Farm team: Yes. the goal of student newspapers is to provide real world experience, a farm team as you put it.
4. Benefits far outweigh risks. Gannett will give students more access to excellent training. Imagine if they made the commitment to send in an experience journalist for a couple weeks once a year. Loads of new technology could come their way. They might become a testing ground for new theories of journalism and coverage.
They will be much better off.
February 10th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
Gannett has a USA Today Collegiate Readership Program that has been cleverly marketed to colleges and universities across the country as a way to enlighten our students and improve the journalism skills of the campus newspaper writers.
Here is the bottom line- This USA Today program is nothing more than a
surreptitious way to curry favor with students and administrators under the guise of providing a valuable educational service to our community. Make no mistake about it. The goal of the USA Today readership program is not to enlighten our students and broaden their perspectives as they would have you believe. Their sneaky plan involves bringing USA Today and usually the New York Times on campus along with the local Gannett metropolitan newspaper- often free of charge to the students but paid for by the college administration. That way they can count all Gannett newspapers on campus as paid circulation and justify ad rate increases. The typical metropolitan newspaper is written on an 8th grade reading level. Is that the kind of education and enlightenment that our students can look forward too?
A few days after the local Gannett paper and two national papers are made available for free in nice shiny racks on the campus, the multitude of ad reps for the local Gannett paper will be calling on every local business within a 10-mile radius of the campus and they will of course call EVERY national advertiser that has used your college paper in the last 5 years. They will offer your college newspaper ad customers a column inch rate that the college paper can’t possibly match. They will do this long enough to destroy the advertising revenue of the college paper. This is how Gannett gobbles up the competition.
“Citizen Kane” is often considered by movie critics to be the best
>movie EVER PRODUCED.
“Citizen Kane” is a 1941 mystery/drama film. Released by RKO Pictures,
it was the first feature film directed by Orson Welles. The story
traces the life and career of Charles Foster Kane, a man whose career
in the publishing world is born of idealistic social service, but
gradually evolves into a ruthless pursuit of power.”- Wikipedia
It supposedly centers around the life of William Randolph Hearst, the
undisputed giant in the newspaper industry in the early 1900’s. He
tried everything he could to ban the movie from reaching the theaters
and almost succeeded. If you want to see what corporate greed in the
newspaper industry looks like, watch the movie.
But don’t worry. When all looks lost, Gannett will come to the rescue and buy out your college newspaper. By that time, half the students have already been laid off because the decrease in ad revenue has necessitated drastic measures. No problem- except that the students that are left now work for a huge multimedia conglomerate and they can kiss goodbye the editorial freedom they have taken for granted.
Once the students start working for Gannett, don’t say something that Gannett does not agree with in the college paper, especially when it comes to politics. Study Gannett’s political mindset and commit it to memory or risk being shown the door. Gannett knows how the game is played. Gannett has already bought an independent college newspaper in Florida and is about to buy another student newspaper in Colorado. This is just the beginning. The alarming fact is that Gannett has duped students and their administrators into thinking that their motives are purely altruistic. That should insult the collective intelligence of our future leaders.
The student newspaper, the last bastion of true freedom of expression in the print media, is slowly being destroyed by a modern day Citizen Kane.
February 11th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
In reverse order:
“The student newspaper as last bastion…” is absurd on it’s face. They are under the complete control of the university.
The other things you mention sound like good old American competiton.
Gannett has readership studies to prove how effective having a national and local newspaper on campus. We tried, but because the local campus newspaper cried “foul” the administration decided we would not be allowed in dorms. Who is restricting the free press in that case?
February 23rd, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Mark said-
“Gannett has readership studies to prove how effective having a national and local newspaper on campus. We tried, but because the local campus newspaper cried “foul” the administration decided we would not be allowed in dorms. Who is restricting the free press in that case?”
What a croc. You must work for Gannett. Of course they have readership studies that make them look good. They also do their own “independent” polling of students to see how well the USA today/Gannett readership program was received after 4 weeks. They have attractive surveyors with big smiles handing out “Surveys” at a kiosk on campus as they are handing out nice little gifts to the participants. Sounds like the kind of shenanigans that go on in third world country elections.
By not allowing Gannett papers in dorms, the students are trying to protect their college newspaper readership and ultimately their advertising revenue. How would a Gannett company like it if the college newspapers delivered their college newspaper to all your local Gannett employees where they work? You obviously did not make the debating team.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
@Dewey: we are a family owned newspaper.
People who do readership studies for Gannett are reputable companies who don’t skew results to the clients wishes.
The college newspaper is available at racks all over town, and we make sure we have copies in the building.
No, I did not make the debating team, I didn’t know we were competing with each other.
March 6th, 2008 at 11:39 am
Mark said:
“People who do readership studies for Gannett are reputable companies who don’t skew results to the clients wishes.”
Mark- do you work for Gannett or are you just naive?
Mark- I witnessed first hand the surveys conducted by USA Today Readership Program workers at a major university after the local Gannett paper, USA Today and NY Times had been on the campus for 4 weeks. I am not a student. They handed out surveys in one hand and nice gifts with the other hand. The results were submitted to the university decision makers and the results were overwhelmingly positive. How can anyone say that these results were not subject to tampering? I actually polled some of the students who filled out the surveys and the results were far different. It reminds of the voting results in Iraq when Sadaam Hussein got 99% of the vote. The other 1% were taken out back and shot.
March 6th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
OK Dewey, we’re done. You’re a troll and any further comments will be deleted.
BTW: the deal fell through - the college turned them down.