Student publication

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The headquarters of The Cornell Daily Sun, founded in 1880 at Cornell University, the oldest continuously published college student newspaper in the United States Cornell Daily Sun building.jpg
The headquarters of The Cornell Daily Sun , founded in 1880 at Cornell University, the oldest continuously published college student newspaper in the United States

A student publication is a media outlet such as a newspaper, magazine, television show, or radio station produced by students at an educational institution. These publications typically cover local and school-related news, but they may also report on national or international news as well. Most student publications are either part of a curricular class or run as an extracurricular activity. [2]

Contents

Student publications serve as both a platform for community discussion and a place for those interested in journalism to develop their skills. These publications report news, publish opinions of students and faculty, and may run advertisements catered to the student body. Besides these purposes, student publications also serve as a watchdog to uncover problems at the respective institution. The majority of student publications are funded through their educational institution. Some funds may be generated through sales and advertisements, but the majority usually comes from the school itself. Because of this, educational institutions have specific ways in which they can influence the publications through funding. [2]

Online student publications

Due to the rise in adoption of Internet accessible devices such as computers and smartphones, many high schools and colleges have begun offering online editions of their publications in addition to printed copies. The first student newspaper in the United States to completely abandon its printed issues in favor of a website was The Campus Lantern at Eastern Connecticut State University,[ citation needed ] doing so in the 2000s; however paper issues of The Lantern have since been brought back. Due to publishing content online, student publications are now able to reach a much wider audience than before. With many student publications moving to online, content is more accessible to the student body and production of the content is easier and cheaper. [3] As printed student publications become more and more scarce and student publications move online to best fit the news needs of today's students, student newspapers will run into several issues. One of these issues is the increase in demand for new content. While an update once a day or even once a week was once acceptable for a student publication, real time information resources will soon be demanded by students who grew up with constant updates of news coverage. This shift in content demand will require more effort and more time by the student newspaper staff.

One of these issues is what is called the "daily me." Coined by Cass Sunstein in his book Republic.com, the "daily me" is the current trend of online readers looking for personalized information providers. [4] In this way the reader deals with only the subjects they wish to deal with. In this way readers are not inconvenienced by material they have no interest in and can personalize an information product themselves, providing added value to both themselves and the provider. However, some believe this trend may not be the best for society, who is now faced with a public that chooses how well to be informed. On a campus paper, this trend will likely manifest itself in the increased number of "hits" to the common "sports" and "opinion" sections of the paper, while hard news sections go un-noticed. This new type of print culture could possibly result in drastic formatting and content changes for student newspapers. [4]

Australia

An Honi Soit stand at the University of Sydney Honi Soit stand.png
An Honi Soit stand at the University of Sydney

University student newspapers in Australia are usually independent of university administration yet are connected with or run by the student representative organisation operating at the campus. Editors tend to be elected by the student body on a separate ticket to other student representatives and are paid an honorarium, although some student organisations have been known to employ unelected staff to coordinate the production of the newspaper (an example of this is the national Student View newspaper).

Controversy

Australian student newspapers have courted controversy since their inception. One of the more notorious of these controversies involved the publication of an article which allegedly incited readers to shoplift. The July edition of the magazine was banned by the Office of Film and Literature Classification following a campaign by conservative talkback radio hosts and other media to have the material banned. The four editors of the July 1995 edition of La Trobe University student magazine Rabelais were subsequently charged with publishing, distributing and depositing an objectionable publication. An objectional publication was defined in this case, as one that incites criminal activity. [5] The editors lodged an appeal, which led to a protracted four-year court case. The appeal was eventually defeated by the full bench of the Federal Court, who refused the editors' application to appeal to the High Court of Australia. [6] The charges were eventually dropped in March 1999.

Canada

Many student newspapers in Canada are independent from their universities and student unions. Such autonomous papers are funded by student fees won by referendums, as well as advertising, and are run by their staffs, with no faculty input.

About 55 of Canada's student newspapers belong to a co-operative and newswire service called the Canadian University Press, [7] which holds conferences, has correspondents across the country, is run democratically by its member papers, and fosters a sense of community among Canadian student journalists.

The oldest continually published student newspapers in Canada are The Varsity (1880), The Queen's Journal (1873), and The Dalhousie Gazette (1868). The oldest student publication in Canada is The Brunswickan , which was founded in 1867 as a monthly but then switched to a weekly newspaper.

The only Canadian student newspaper that continues to print on a daily schedule is The Gazette at the University of Western Ontario.

Ireland

Student publications are produced at Ireland's universities and Institutes of Technology as well as to a lesser extent at Colleges of Further Education. These publications include The College Tribune and The University Observer at University College Dublin, Trinity News and The University Times at Trinity College Dublin, The College View based at Dublin City University and Sin Newspaper at NUI Galway. Other publications include The Edition (stylised as the eDITion), at Dublin Institute of Technology and the UCC Express and Motley Magazine at University College Cork.

Each publication reports on affairs at its host university and on local, national and international news of relevance to students and many student journalists have gone on to work in Ireland's national press. All student publications in Ireland are funded by or linked to their host university or its students' union, with the exception of UCD's College Tribune which operates independently. Irish student publications are invited each year to enter the national Student Media Awards, run by a Dublin-based marketing firm Oxygen.ie under various categories.

South Korea

Almost every university in South Korea runs a student based press. Although many of these press are funded by the school, the students press has a significant amount of say amongst the student body.

United Kingdom

Student newspapers in the United Kingdom are often given a constitutionally guaranteed editorial independence from the universities and students' unions whose students they represent, although the majority are financially dependent on their students' union. Notable British student newspapers that are financially as well as editorially independent from their respective student unions are Cherwell (Oxford Student Publications Ltd), Varsity (Varsity Publications Ltd; Cambridge), The Tab (Tab Media Ltd; national) and The Gown (Queen's University Belfast).

In 2003, The National Student , the UK's first independent national student newspaper, was launched (closed 2019). Scotcampus a similar publication based in Scotland was founded in 2001 (closed 2016). In 2009, The Student Journals was founded as an independent online magazine for students, but started allowing international writers one year after launch (closed 2014).

United States

Front page of the first edition of The Daily Tar Heel, a student newspaper of University of North Carolina, from 1892. The Tar Heel Feb 23 1893 first issue.jpg
Front page of the first edition of The Daily Tar Heel , a student newspaper of University of North Carolina, from 1892.

Case law

Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District

Tinker v. Des Moines concerns a group of students who wanted to wear black armbands to school in 1965 to protest United States involvement in Vietnam. After school officials heard about the planned silent protest, they suspended the students involved. A few of the students involved sued and the Supreme Court sided with the students, saying that provided that these speech acts did not distract themselves or others from academic work, the real purpose of the school, then students were free to wear and say want they liked in school. This is considered the benchmark case in issues of student free speech and contains the famous phrase "students do not shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate." [8]

Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier

Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, heard by the United States Supreme Court in 1987 concerned a public school newspaper that attempted to print two controversial stories about issues of teen pregnancy and divorced families. It was the custom of the principal to look over the proposed paper before publication. With little time left before the publication deadline, the principal decided that the two stories, though names had been changed to protect the stories' subjects, were inappropriate for the paper's younger readers; under direction of the principal, the paper was printed without the offending stories. The students filed suit, but the Supreme Court stood by the principal's ruling, that, because of time constraints, the only proper course of action was to not print the stories. It was decided that the students' First Amendment rights had not been infringed. This case is often cited by high schools and universities to support the custom of prior review. [9]

Kincaid v. Gibson

Interaction of court rulings

Hazelwood and Tinker offer conflicting versions of student free expression. Student-directed publications may indeed be considered open or limited public forums for student expression, offering students freedom of expression under both Hazelwood and Tinker.

Hazelwood, for example, does not say administrators must review or censor their papers before publication. In fact, journalism education organizations, like the Journalism Education Association, argue that prior review has no legitimate educational merit and is only a tool leading to censorship.

Under certain limited conditions and situations presented by Hazelwood, school administrators may be permitted prior review of (mostly high school) student publications.

Until June 2005, the Hazelwood standard was not considered to apply to public college and university newspapers, a decision most recently affirmed in the 2001 appeals court decision in Kincaid v. Gibson . However, in June 2005, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled, in Hosty v. Carter , that the Hazelwood standard could apply to student publications that were not "designated public forums," and in February 2006 the Supreme Court declined to hear the students' appeal. At this time[ when? ], the Hosty decision applies only in the states of Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin.

In response to the Kincaid decision, the California State Legislature passed AB 2581, which extended existing state-level statutory protection of high school student journalists to college and university students. [10] The bill was signed into law by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and took effect on January 1, 2007.

Controversy over alleged censorship actions has led some student newspapers to become independent organizations, such as The Exponent of Purdue University in 1969, The Daily Californian of the University of California, Berkeley in 1971, The Daily Orange of Syracuse University in 1971, The Independent Florida Alligator of the University of Florida in 1973, The Cavalier Daily of the University of Virginia in 1979, The Paisano of the University of Texas at San Antonio in 1981, and most recently[ when? ] The Mountaineer Jeffersonian of West Virginia University in 2008.

Some states have laws which enhance the U.S. Constitution in protecting student expression documented by the Student Press Law Center.

John Silber and university newspapers

University administrations have learned to get around constitutional protections and effectively diminish critical student newspapers by following the example of former Boston University President John Silber, who on the advice of Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz, eliminated all funding for student newspapers in the 1970s in an attempt to suppress on-campus criticism. Silber's policy went so far as to ban student organizations funded by the university from placing advertisements in the student press. With his hands-off policy, Silber was able to eliminate the independence of The Daily News and financially crippled the more-radical b.u. exposure. The exposure sued Silber and the university for infringement of their First Amendment rights, but the courts of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts eventually dismissed their case.

Issues of diversity in student newspapers

Studies by the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education (JBHE) focusing on African American students have found that as few as 2.6% of editors of all student newspapers are of African-American descent, with other minorities showing similar trending. These numbers are not much higher at schools with credited journalism schools. In these institutions, only 4.4% of editors are of African American descent. Both of these percentages are significantly below the percentage of population African-Americans make up in the total United States. Such skewed demographics in these publications could result in newspapers that only reflect the outlooks and values of a particular segment of the student population. The JBHE did not suggest any type of affirmative action program for student publications at the study's release in 2004. [11]

See also

Related Research Articles

Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969), was a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court that recognized the First Amendment rights of students in U.S. public schools. The Tinker test, also known as the "substantial disruption" test, is still used by courts today to determine whether a school's interest to prevent disruption infringes upon students' First Amendment rights. The Court famously opined, "It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate."

<i>The Maneater</i>

The Maneater is the official, editorially independent student news publication of the University of Missouri. The Maneater editorial and advertising staffs are composed entirely of students, with the exception of a professional business adviser. Financially, The Maneater is a non-profit publication funded by advertisers. The newspaper is distributed free of charge, and all aspects of its website remain accessible at no cost to readers. The editorial department of The Maneater remains independent from any student governments and organizations, as well as the Missouri School of Journalism and university itself.

The Martlet is a student newspaper published online every two weeks at the University of Victoria (UVic) in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

<i>Dean v. Utica Community Schools</i> 2004 United States legal case

Dean v. Utica Community Schools, 345 F. Supp. 2d 799, is a landmark legal case in United States constitutional law, namely on how the First Amendment applies to censorship in a public school environment. The case expanded on the ruling definitions of the Supreme Court case Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, in which a high school journalism-oriented trial on censorship limited the First Amendment right to freedom of expression in curricular student newspapers. The case consisted of Utica High School Principal Richard Machesky ordering the deletion of an article in the Arrow, the high school's newspaper, a decision later deemed "unreasonable" and "unconstitutional" by District Judge Arthur Tarnow.

<i>The Independent Florida Alligator</i> Student newspaper of the University of Florida

The Independent Florida Alligator is the student newspaper of the University of Florida. The Alligator is one of the largest student-run newspapers in the United States, with a circulation of 14,000 and readership of more than 21,000. It is an affiliate of UWIRE, which distributes and promotes its content to their network.

The Fairfield Mirror is the student newspaper of Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut. It is a student-run publication that publishes weekly on Wednesdays during the academic year with additional issues during commencement and orientation. The Mirror staff has won numerous Excellence in Journalism Awards from the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists.

The State News is the student newspaper of Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. It is supported by a combination of advertising revenue and a $7.50 refundable tax that students pay at each semester's matriculation. Though The State News is supported by a student tax, the faculty and administration do not interfere in the paper's content. The State News is governed by a Board of Directors, which comprises journalism professionals, faculty and students. In 2010, the Princeton Review ranked The State News as the #8 best college newspaper in the country. And in 2015, the Society of Professional Journalists named TSN as the nation's best daily college newspaper for 2014.

<i>Palatinate</i> (newspaper) Durham University student newspaper

Palatinate is the student newspaper of Durham University. One of Britain's oldest student publications, Palatinate is frequently ranked as one of the leading student outlets in the UK and Ireland, winning Best Publication in the Student Publication Association's 2018 and 2021 national awards. In the same year Palatinate was Highly Commended in the Best Publication category of the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme's Student Journalism Awards. Several of its editors have gone on to gain national recognition in journalism.

<i>The Pitt News</i> Newspaper for the University of Pittsburgh

The Pitt News is an independent, student-written and student-managed newspaper for the main campus of the University of Pittsburgh in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh. The Pitt News has been active in some form since 1910 and is published online Monday through Friday, and in print on Wednesdays, during the regular academic year and Wednesdays during the summer.

<i>Collegiate Times</i> Student newspaper of Virginia Tech

The Collegiate Times is an independent, student-run newspaper serving Virginia Tech since 1903. The Educational Media Company at Virginia Tech (EMCVT), a non-profit student media consortium, owns the publication. Based in Blacksburg, Virginia, the Collegiate Times publishes local news, sports, features and opinions for 5,000 print readers every Tuesday of the academic year and prints weekly summer editions. The Collegiate Times represents the only daily newspaper produced in Blacksburg and also provides its content online via its website, mobile app, and various social media outlets.

Morse v. Frederick, 551 U.S. 393 (2007), is a United States Supreme Court case where the Court held, 5–4, that the First Amendment does not prevent educators from prohibiting or punishing student speech that is reasonably viewed as promoting illegal drug use.

The Concordian is an independent, entirely student-run newspaper published weekly for the students of Concordia University; its offices and hard-copy distribution centres are located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

<i>Desilets v. Clearview Regional Board of Education</i> New Jersey Supreme Court decision

Desilets v. Clearview Regional Board of Education, 137 N.J. 585 (1994), was a New Jersey Supreme Court decision that held that public school curricular student newspapers that have not been established as forums for student expression are subject to a lower level of First Amendment protection than independent student expression or newspapers established as forums for student expression.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">California Education Code 48907</span>

California Education Code 48907 (1977), also known as the California Student Free Expression Law, acts as a counter to the Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier (1988) Supreme Court ruling, which limited the freedom of speech granted to public high school newspapers. The Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier decision held that public school curricular student newspapers that have not been established as "forums for student expression" are subject to a lower level of First Amendment protection than independent student expression or newspapers established as forums for student expression. Ed Code 48907 affirms the right of high school newspapers to publish whatever they choose, so long as the content isn't explicitly obscene, libelous, or slanderous, and doesn’t incite students to violate any laws or school regulations. The newspaper content must also pass the minimal disruption test set forth in the Supreme Court ruling on Tinker v. Des Moines (1969). In contrast with Hazelwood, which limited First Amendment protection to only those high school newspapers that had, through practice or policy, been established as forums for student expression, Ed Code 48907 affirms the right of all newspapers to the freedom of expression.

The issue of school speech or curricular speech as it relates to the First Amendment to the United States Constitution has been the center of controversy and litigation since the mid-20th century. The First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech applies to students in the public schools. In the landmark decision Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, the U.S. Supreme Court formally recognized that students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate".

<i>Hosty v. Carter</i>

Hosty v. Carter was a 2005 decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit that limited the free press rights of college newspapers.

The censorship of student media in the United States is the suppression of student-run news operations' free speech by school administrative bodies, typically state schools. This consists of schools using their authority to control the funding and distribution of publications, taking down articles, and preventing distribution. Some forms of student media censorship extend to expression not funded by or under the official auspices of the school system or college.

Hazelwood School District et al. v. Kuhlmeier et al., 484 U.S. 260 (1988), was a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States which held, in a 5–3 decision, that student speech in a school-sponsored student newspaper at a public high school could be censored by school officials without a violation of First Amendment rights if the school's actions were "reasonably related" to a legitimate pedagogical concern.

<i>The Classic</i> (newspaper) US student newspaper

The Classic is the student-run high school newspaper of Townsend Harris High School in Queens, New York. Frequently named the best high school newspaper in New York City by Baruch College's NYC public school journalism awards, the paper has run free of censorship and administrative review since its founding in the fall of 1984. In recent years, reporting by The Classic has been cited by publications like The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal, and the Associated Press. Classic journalists have also been featured in various publications, including Teen Vogue, The Village Voice, and The New York Times. The paper publishes new content online on weeknights throughout the school year and publishes a print edition of collected pieces on a quarterly basis.

<i>Viking Saga</i> censorship incident 2022 student newspaper incident in Grand Island, Nebraska

The Viking Saga is the student newspaper of Northwest High School in Grand Island, Nebraska, in the United States. In April 2022, the staff of the paper was told that transgender writers should not use their preferred names on bylines and instead must use the names they had been given at birth.

References

  1. ↑ "16 Sep: The First Student Newspaper", The Retro Spectors
  2. 1 2 Hapney, Terry L.; Russo, Charles J. (2013). "Student Newspapers at Public Colleges and Universities: Lessons from the United States". Education Law Journal. 14 (2): 114–124.
  3. ↑ Buckingham, David; Harvey, Issy; Sefton-Green, Julian (1999). "The Difference is Digital? Digital Technology and Student Media Production". Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. 5 (4): 10–20. doi:10.1177/135485659900500402. S2CID   61147697.
  4. 1 2 Sunstein, Cass R. (2001). Republic.com. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. ISBN   0-691-07025-3.
  5. ↑ Haddad, Nadya (1997). "Rabble-Rousing and Rabelais: Fear of Lawless Shoplifting Students". Polemic. 8 (2): 32–33.
  6. ↑ Federal Court of Australia, Annual report 1997–1998, Chapter 2, The Work of the Court, 2.2 Decisions of Interest
  7. ↑ Baluja, Tamara (2013-09-18). "Student Newspapers Launch Alternative Newswire to Canadian University Press". J-Source. Retrieved 2021-12-22.
  8. ↑ "Tinker v. Des Moines – Landmark Supreme Court Ruling on Behalf of Student Expression". American Civil Liberties Union.
  9. ↑ Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier. Archived from the original on 2010-04-14. Retrieved 2010-04-27– via bc.edu.
  10. ↑ Assembly Bill No. 2581 (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on July 1, 2007 – via customfiles.jacconline.org.
  11. ↑ "Almost No Black Editors on the Staffs of Student Newspapers at Universities with Programs in Journalism". The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education (44): 59. 2004. doi:10.2307/4133740. JSTOR   4133740.
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