Chapter 12

Chapter 12 is all about campus newspapers and student journalism.

The Red & Black and other campus newspapers are training grounds. This is where student journalists practice their crafts and build portfolios (without which they have virtually no chance at a job).

The first lessons in Campus writing are commitment and courage. The student must be willing to work under-staffed and without pay. Long hours and hard work are the simple reality of journalism. That's commitment.

Courage is writing editorials that may upset people in authority over the writer as a student. They must use ethical and sound principles of journalism, but they shouldn't back down either.

The Rice Thresher at Rice University is cited as doing a good job at this when it explores a U.S. Supreme Court finding that the university violated rules for financing sports equally based on gender.

The Thresher notes the different percentages and how to better fix the problem than simply throw more money at it. They also note that the inequality is not as severe as it was made out due to the largely shared use of facilities.

They did something else right to, they wrote about something that directly impacted the students. Student journalists should focus on stories that directly affect the readers, in most cases students and staff at their university.

Many points on good editorial writing brought up in earlier chapters are mentioned here. Other things to remember are that open record laws are there for our use, grammar is important and we must focus on short, central points.

Writers have to practice. The campus papers are an ideal place to start.