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”.

For some time now, I’ve thought about cre­at­ing a guide, or a chart per­haps, regard­ing the dif­fer­ent lev­els of inde­pen­dence in col­lege media. The prob­lem, as we have seen it recently, is that almost every col­lege pub­li­ca­tion claims a cer­tain degree of inde­pen­dence. “MSU’s Inde­pen­dent Voice,” screams the State News, Michi­gan State University’s stu­dent news­pa­per. “One-hundred twenty years of edi­to­r­ial free­dom,” echoes the Michi­gan Daily at the Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan. Think­ing fur­ther, I’ve devel­oped a three-tier sys­tem for eval­u­at­ing a publication’s inde­pen­dence, an attribute I per­son­ally con­sider impor­tant to the cred­i­bil­ity of the cov­er­age of any par­tic­u­lar pub­li­ca­tion. Here’s what I have so far, and please don’t hes­i­tate to share your thoughts in the com­ments below.

1.) Edi­to­ri­ally Inde­pen­dent. Most pub­li­ca­tions are, or claim to be, edi­to­ri­ally inde­pen­dent from the uni­ver­si­ties they cover. The most strin­gent fol­low­ers of this impor­tant jour­nal­is­tic prin­ci­ple must not have any mem­bers of the university’s admin­is­tra­tion on their gov­ern­ing board. The same goes for any mem­bers of ‘stu­dent gov­ern­ment’, or any other orga­ni­za­tion that the pub­li­ca­tion reg­u­larly cov­ers. It is accept­able, how­ever to have advi­sory boards with char­ac­ters of this nature, and per­haps, even lim­ited roles on edi­to­r­ial boards or gov­ern­ing boards, pro­vided these indi­vid­u­als recuse them­selves from any deci­sion regard­ing cov­er­age of an area in which they have a hand. I see far too many gov­ern­ing boards or bod­ies that con­tain uni­ver­sity offi­cials. This is not inde­pen­dent, folks. Even if there are care­ful poli­cies in place to pre­vent con­flicts of inter­est, the appear­ance of a con­flict is, more often than not, just as uneth­i­cal as a true conflict.

2.) Finan­cially Inde­pen­dent. I’ve come across dif­fer­ent finan­cial sys­tems when exam­in­ing fel­low uni­ver­sity news­pa­pers. The most bla­tant offend­ers of the finan­cial inde­pen­dence prin­ci­ple are the pub­li­ca­tions that accept stu­dent, uni­ver­sity, or tax-payer money, with no option for stu­dents to opt-out. Like­wise with the edi­to­r­ial inde­pen­dence prin­ci­ple above, a pub­li­ca­tion that accepts fund­ing from the admin­is­tra­tion of the uni­ver­sity can­not be expected to fairly and objec­tively report on the mem­bers of that admin­is­tra­tion. Even with effec­tive safe­guards and poli­cies in place, there is a huge, and in my opin­ion, unavoid­able impres­sion of impro­pri­ety in sit­u­a­tion where a publication’s finances are backed by a sub­ject of cov­er­age. Some medium level finan­cially inde­pen­dent pub­li­ca­tions, like the State News for instance, will allow stu­dent to opt-out of a spe­cial “student-tax” designed to sup­ple­ment the cof­fers of the news­pa­per. Uni­ver­sity dona­tions seem accept­able, as well as dona­tions from read­ers, and other out­side donors. Still, a pub­li­ca­tion that refuses to accept any stu­dent, uni­ver­sity, or tax-payer fund­ing has the ulti­mate finan­cial independence.

3.) Legally Inde­pen­dent. Finally, and per­haps least impor­tant, is the legal sta­tus of the pub­li­ca­tion. The most inde­pen­dent pub­li­ca­tions will enjoy a com­plete legal sep­a­ra­tion from the uni­ver­sity. Most uni­ver­sity news­pa­pers are legal exten­sions of the uni­ver­sity, shar­ing in the university’s non-profit, tax-exempt sta­tus. Some, are inde­pen­dent non-profits with uni­ver­sity offi­cials serv­ing on the board of direc­tors (see edi­to­r­ial inde­pen­dence, above).