Stu. Journos in 'Real World' of hurt

Graphic by TJ Sullivan

If there's one thing every student journalist I've ever encountered has in common it's their dislike of the term "real world." Just wait until you're out in the real world ...

Being called a "student journalist" can sometimes be taken as an insult too.

They're right. No question about it. These men and women -- not all of them are "young men and women" -- are plain, old journalists who operate under the same code of ethics as their off-campus counterparts. Indeed, they often venture off campus to report on the communities in which their readers reside.

So it should come as no surprise to learn that college newspapers are hurting same as every other American newspaper.

This from reporter Drew FitzGerald in the weekend edition of USA Today:

Since the start of the current school year, daily newspapers at schools including Syracuse University, New York University, the University of California-Berkeley, Ball State, Boston University and Georgia Southern have cut one edition a week — usually Friday's — because of weak advertising.

"We have to break even this year. Otherwise, we're not going to make it," says Bryan Thomas, 22, editor of Berkeley's Daily Californian, which stopped printing Wednesdays starting last August.

(Gawker opined on this issue back in September, albeit unsympathetically.)

Read the rest of the weekend edition story at USA Today.

(Twitter This)

-- TJ Sullivan

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