Photo: Megan White
This past week we were notified of a national campaign to save student newsrooms. The campaign was started by a group of student leaders at the Independent Florida Alligator, a newspaper for the University of Florida. They called for students in colleges across the U.S. to speak out and let their communities know about the challenges student newspapers face today.
Using the #SaveStudentNewsrooms, student publications are spreading the word in recognition of the funding for newspapers declining in this digital age.
Wednesday, April 25, student journalists across the country helped raise awareness for common issues that student-run newsrooms face. As student journalists at Elizabethtown College, The Etownian staff want to emphasize the importance of a free media in general and specifically in the Etown community.
At The Etownian, we are extremely thankful for the support we receive from the College, as we are college-funded. But, we would also like to recognize the fact that the budget allotted to The Etownian is not enough to cover our printing and staffing costs. Even with added revenue from advertisements, we are only able to pay our staff a stipend which is far less than minimum wage when figuring the hours they work—not to mention only about a quarter of our staff is paid. The rest are volunteers.
Although we have worked to cut costs wherever possible and have the cheapest printing service in the area, each year, The Etownian finishes the semester in debt. Technically, all students are guaranteed a subscription to The Etownian, but our budget allows us to only print enough issues for about a third of the school population. The struggle of insufficient budgets is not unique to The Etownian though, as student newsrooms across the country are facing many of the same struggles as us—and some are not able to gain any funding from their school.
As an entity of the College, The Etownian does have to answer to administrative requests regarding content. While these requests are not common, we have had experiences in which administration expressed concerns about the content we planned to run, and we were strongly encouraged to edit our content according to those suggestions.
In the era of “fake news,” we strive to provide honest and important news for all students at Etown.
This means sometimes we need to step beyond what feels comfortable and push some limits to bring awareness to issues which affect our students and faculty.
This movement is meant to encourage people across the nation to acknowledge the importance of student journalists and to garner support for our continuation. We, as student journalists and as Blue Jays, will continue to strive to provide the best and most important stories to everyone in the Etown community. This is something, though, we cannot do without your help.
If you would like to support this campaign, please consider donating to your local student-run newspaper, The Etownian. We appreciate your time reading this paper and always welcome your submissions. We encourage everyone to participate in our upcoming events, including our senior shout-out campaign. For anyone interested in joining this cause or writing for The Etownian, please contact editor@etown.edu for more information.
