With an inti­mate involve­ment in cre­at­ing a new pub­li­ca­tion, less than a year ago, one becomes increas­ingly aware of the col­lege media land­scape, espe­cially in Michi­gan (where we are). I was already an avid daily reader of Cen­tral Michi­gan Life, the State News, and the Michi­gan Daily (none of which are pub­lished at my uni­ver­sity), so I had a pretty fair grasp on col­lege media in gen­eral, the trends, the indus­try, etc. How­ever, it’s the lit­tle nuances that one doesn’t notice until he’s fully engulfed in the indus­try that I’ve been enjoy­ing, and one of those is the use and preva­lence of the term “inde­pen­dent”.
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If a stu­dent news­pa­per has restric­tions on adver­tis­ing tobacco or smok­ing prod­ucts, what do you do with a hookah bar? Is that the same thing or some­thing totally different?

I must admit, I’ve never entered a hookah bar. I don’t know what they’re all about. I just won­der how they fit into the equa­tion and what stu­dent news­pa­pers are doing about ads from places like hookah bars.

Does the need for increased ad rev­enue in tough eco­nomic times out­weigh the moral stan­dards the paper would like to uphold? Does the econ­omy make it nec­es­sary for stu­dent papers to review and maybe change old adver­tis­ing reg­u­la­tions to help increase rev­enue, regard­ing things like alco­hol and tobacco? Real­ity is these com­pa­nies are often get­ting rich off the money from stu­dents on your cam­pus; why not get some money from those wealthy companies?

When Wes Mau­rer gets asked what will save news­pa­pers, his sim­pli­fied response is good writ­ing and good journalism.

Mau­rer, the pub­lisher and edi­tor of the St. Ignace News in St. Ignace, Mich. and the Mack­inac Island Town Crier, rep­re­sents an old school style of news­pa­per jour­nal­ism that isn’t focused on tweets and web prowess, but more so the con­tent that fills the space between the reader’s thumbs as they hold the paper in front of their face. (more…)

The Col­lege News­room Team will be attend­ing the Michi­gan Press Asso­ci­a­tions annual con­fer­ence in Grand Rapids, Mich. on Fri­day Jan. 29.

This is a great oppor­tu­nity for the col­lege news­pa­pers of Michi­gan to pose ques­tions (as a com­ment below this post) and get answers.

Let us know what YOU want to know.

Or, if you’re going to be at the con­fer­ence, stop by our table next to the reg­is­tra­tion area.

Look­ing for­ward to meet­ing you.
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What if you have a really strong News Edi­tor (or any other lead­er­ship posi­tion for that mat­ter) who is offered a posi­tion at a pro­fes­sional paper or a great intern­ship and lit­er­ally has to leave one day? Do you bite your tongue and cel­e­brate the suc­cess as a stu­dent news­pa­per? Do you crit­i­cize the per­son for not giv­ing more notice and bail­ing out on a year– or semester-long com­mit­ment? How does a stu­dent news­pa­per — small or large — deal with such changes? It is the nature of the beast to have a staff some­what in flux.