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St. Lou wins "control" of campus paper

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Moderator1, May 6, 2007.

  1. Moderator1

    Moderator1 Moderator Staff Member

    Interesting goings-on:

    http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/44FA6A9639FDAA49862572D30008481F?OpenDocument
     
  2. jakewriter82

    jakewriter82 Active Member

    Wow. I guess it depends on the University, but if that happened at my old school paper, heads would roll....Although the hiring of an editor by the staff seems to make sense. I'd be interested to see if the school makes any other changes down the road.
     
  3. Sxysprtswrtr

    Sxysprtswrtr Active Member

    Surprised this story didn't broach the subject of student fees and advertising revenue. If the university supports the student media program through the majority of student fees then the pendulum of control tends to swing toward the administration (unfortunately).
     
  4. At my school (a public university), the student publications committee, not the staffs, selected both the newspaper and yearbook editors-in-chief. Those people then hired their respective staffs and so on. The only representation we had on the committee was the advisor. The Student Goverment Association had representation on it, and the provost was a committee member. In the seven semesters I was on staff, there was only one time when people were upset about who was chosen. But that editor was chosen from two applicants. The committee didn't just randomly select a person, which it sounds like St. Louis could potentially do.
     
  5. Eagleboy

    Eagleboy Guest

    I can't say this would necessarily be a bad thing after seeing an inept ME and Editor-In-Chief the last year I was there. The new guy in charge there will change this, of course, but there were so many poor decisions made there in the past it was troubling for everyone involved.
     
  6. STLIrish

    STLIrish Active Member

    Eagle,

    I'm not sure anyone in this fight is making the argument that the U News is a particularly good college paper. Just that the university shouldn't be hiring editors for it. Crappy or not, a college paper ought to be independent, and it's pretty tough to be when your editor is beholden to the administration.
     
  7. Eagleboy

    Eagleboy Guest

    STL, sorry for the lack of clarification. I didn't mean at St. Louis University, I mean at the college paper at the school I attended, which wasn't that one. And I agree that the papers should be independent; my point was just that one positive would be that real news would get out, not the friends writing about friends that occurred at my place.

    But of course, the odd censorship/criticism line should never be violated. The paper shouldn't ever be held subject to that.
     
  8. Bubbler

    Bubbler Well-Known Member

    Rick Majerus is taking control of the press way too far.
     
  9. outofplace

    outofplace Well-Known Member

    I'd like to hear more about how the past editors-in-chief were chosen. Was it by the outgoing staff?

    The EIC at my college paper was chosen by a committee that included faculty, the student advisor for the paper, a student body representative and a former EIC. The big problem was that they didn't involve the current EIC, even if it was somebody who would not be returning. The faculty reps didn't give a damn, so the former EIC just railroaded everything and we ended up with her "protege" running things my senior year, even though she had been a miserable failure as News Editor.

    I'm not sure letting the staff handle it on its own would always be better, but in that instance the committee really dropped the ball because only one person was really in touch with the current goings-on at the paper and she had her own agenda to push.

    And no, I didn't apply. Just sharing a related story. :)
     
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