The student newspaper is an institution at most colleges and universities nationwide — some dating back more than a century. Independent of their school administration, they report on campus life, faculty, administrative policy, events and sports — about the things that matter most to students — and increasingly about the broader community beyond campus. Though they are facing challenges familiar to local newsrooms — funding and sustainability, recruitment and retention — many are rising to the challenge of the moment, producing vital and award-winning journalism.
Reporting from the University of Iowa
Jason Brummond graduated from the University of Iowa with degrees in journalism and business. During his undergraduate work, he worked as a sports reporter and later as the editor-in-chief for The Daily Iowan, an independent nonprofit news service covering the university and the community beyond its campus. He went on to earn his MBA and returned to the paper as its publisher in May 2017.
“The paper meant so much to me. It was really an honor to come back and lead the paper in this capacity. I strongly believe in the mission and the experience it provides student journalists. I wanted to be in a position where I could influence and protect that,” Brummond told E&P.
The Daily Iowan publishes weekly in print and has a 24/7 website. There are roughly 50 distribution points to pick up the free paper. The student-staffed newsroom — on average about 110 to 120 students in an academic year — also produces a three-day-a-week livestream newscast. Paid professionals staff operations and business positions, though Brummond said they’re in the process of expanding student roles in the business and advertising departments.
Student Publication’s, Inc., the nonprofit owner, also operates two community newspapers. The Daily Iowan is as much a community paper as a campus publication.
“We have long covered the city and the county as much as campus,” Brummond explained. “We cover the Iowa City School Board and city council.”
There are several sources of revenue. About 40% comes from a student service fee; approximately 25% is from philanthropic donations — large gifts and annual giving drives — and the remaining comes from advertising.
“Both recruitment and retention are challenging at times. We have a lot of students who work in our newsroom and also have other jobs, whether on campus or downtown. … In the past, we were maybe more stringent about having a minimum requirement for the number of stories they produce each week, but that didn't work for us,” he said.
One of the major stories the newsroom produced was covering Iowa City protests in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. “We spent a lot of time talking with our student editors and strategizing how to cover it safely,” he said.
Asked about the impact of the student’s work, Brummond cited a voter guide they produced in the run-up to the last presidential election — a collaboration between the three papers. They also created a guide to the Iowa Caucuses and a special real estate edition that looked at Iowa City rental rates and affordable housing for students.
“We produce things that are a little more college-student-centric, too,” he said. “We had a sex issue two weeks ago, which was focused on Gen Z and relationships. It was a multi-story package in print and digital that covered everything from the political divide between young men and women in this country to male loneliness — and why this generation is having less sex and is less likely to be in relationships compared to previous generations at this age.”
He observed that other relationships have changed, too, noting that the way sources interact with their reporters is different. “Sources started preferring to have us email them questions, which we don’t want to do, or they want to meet over Zoom rather than in person. They’re less inclined to want to talk over the phone and certainly don’t want pop-up visits or even scheduled visits. That’s been a change and a challenge post-pandemic,” he observed.
From the editor’s desk
Kassandra Castillo is a journalism major at Bucks County Community College in Newtown, Pennsylvania. On the first day of journalism class, her professor welcomed students to attend the first club meeting of the campus newspaper, The Centurion. The editor-in-chief was scheduled to graduate the following semester, so they needed a successor. Castillo raised her hand. She began writing for the paper during the autumn semester, and by spring, she was named editor-in-chief.
“News as a whole always interested me,” she said. “Even in elementary school, I turned on the TV to watch the news while I was getting ready for school. I like being informed about what’s going on.” Castillo said that despite protestations from people who’d like censor journalists or see it as a “dying field,” she remains motivated and committed.
The Centurion has a faculty adviser who is “completely hands-off.” Students run the entire enterprise. They choose what they publish, in a bi-weekly print edition and online.
It’s a very small staff. Students taking classes in journalism are required to report or write for the paper. In addition to Castillo, there’s a managing editor and a graphic designer. “It’s pretty much us three,” she said. They work in a classroom equipped with computers, courtesy of a board of trustees member who felt strongly about The Centurion’s duty and mission. In fact, the paper gets a lot of encouragement from faculty and administrators. It’s not unusual, she said, for professors to swing by the classroom and give a thumbs up to the hard-working staff.
“We are the only club at Bucks Community College solely funded by ads,” she explained.
This year, The Centurion — and Castillo specifically — was honored by the Student Keystone Media Awards. She attended the awards ceremony and recalled how affirming it was to be an honoree and be in the room with her peers in college media. “It’s great to know that there are a lot of people who still care about news and truth,” she reflected.
Castillo plans to finish her undergraduate studies at a Philadelphia university, perhaps at LaSalle or Temple. She’d like to one day be a broadcast journalist.
Reporting from the University of Georgia
When Charlotte Norsworthy Varnum completed her graduate studies in journalism, she still had pressing questions about the future of journalism and the sustainability of local news. She saw the opportunity to join The Red & Black as executive director, a position from which to experiment, innovate and find answers. She wears many hats in the role, including ensuring that the organization is funded and produces impactful journalism. “I’m responsible for increasing credibility and utility in our community, all the while ensuring we can keep the lights on,” she said.
There is a misconception that a legacy news organization — in the case of The Red & Black, a more than 130-year-old newspaper — is somehow grandfathered into permanent existence, but that’s not the case, she said. This year, they had to cut the newsroom in half — to a “skeleton crew" of about 25 students.
The revenue model for the nonprofit student press is intentionally diverse. The primary source of revenue is from the print paper. They also produce specialty publications around topics like tourism. They increasingly rely on donations from individuals and institutions.
“In the last few years, we started turning to our community and saying, ‘Hey, if we don't make a change, we will very quickly be announcing our last day. We need your support,’” she said. And that message resonates because The Red & Black is more than a campus news organization; it's a community news provider, too.
Depending on the time of year, up to 40% of the audience are students, faculty and administrators. But the majority are alumni, parents of students, Georgia Bulldog fans and local residents who like to be apprised of what’s happening on campus and at one of the largest employers in the county. The print edition has a distribution of about 200,000 copies a year. However, Varnum estimates that as many as 3 million people a year access their journalism — all free, across all platforms — via redandblack.com.
Students not only staff the newsroom; they also have roles in business, graphics and operations. About 65% are journalism majors; others study law, business, English, communications and art. Recruitment isn’t a challenge, but retention is.
“Once we get folks in the door, keeping them there is the hardest part, for various reasons,” she said, citing schoolwork, social activities and off-campus jobs. Senior staff members are paid, but everyone starts as an unpaid contributor before progressing into paid roles.
As an independent news organization, The Red & Black hasn’t had any threats of censorship from the university administration, and complaints about the reporting have been “few and far between,” Varnum said. But they have experienced a somewhat new challenge, the “right to be forgotten.”
In the past year, the newsroom has contended with students or alums who have asked for their images or names to be removed from previous reporting — for example, if they’ve been interviewed about or photographed at a protest. They are concerned about being targeted by law enforcement, having their images manipulated by Artificial Intelligence (AI), or being subjected to online harassment. These requests have inspired the staff to revise their "take-down policy."
“We've had to go back to the standards of ethics and ask, what does it mean to ‘do no harm’ today? … If they were at a public event and were not named, our policy is not to take down photography,” Varnum explained. However, if the student was named in the article, they will consider removing the name in favor of a more anonymous attribution.
As a training organization, Varnum wants the students to be expressly prepared for the professional world beyond the campus, so she’s created a culture of transparency. They have conversations about the challenges facing news organizations and democracy.
“Tariffs are changing our bottom line for our print products. At one point, we received back-and-forth messages from our print vendors to inform us about 20% increases in our print costs. Then they said, ‘Just kidding’ — that sort of whiplash. But a 20% cost increase to our bottom line is not something we can absorb, and it brings a lot of unsettling feelings into the work we’re doing and the students we’re training,” Varnum said.
She explained to the students, “In this industry, your career will be long. You will see and cover many of these fluctuations, as well as threats to our work. … I would love to shelter our students from that and preserve the dogged energy they naturally possess, but it’s important to expose them to it all.”
Varnum is particularly proud of the students' work in the past year. They’ve covered the murder of a student on campus; they've reported on pro-Palestinian protests and a school shooting at a local high school.
“Because those stories were so major, our community received an influx of state, regional and national organizations coming in to cover those stories. It was clear the difference in approach, the difference in emotional availability that our sources are willing to have with us versus a national outlet they've never heard from or seen in their community,” she said. “It reminded us that journalism can be predatory at times. It can take advantage of your community, but when the dust settles, who remains at the end of the day? It’s the folks like our students and institutions like The Red & Black.”
“The journalists we’re training are the future of the free press,” she concluded.
Gretchen A. Peck is a contributing editor to Editor & Publisher. She's reported for E&P since 2010 and welcomes comments at gretchenapeck@gmail.com.
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