All News Doesn't Make it to Print

With Black college newspapers struggling to maintain a campus presence, many  Black journalism students are finding it harder to hone and showcase their skills

The Campus Chronicle is a feisty little student newspaper at Alcorn State University in rural Mississippi. Last year, the paper won several awards in the Black College Communication Association's student newspaper contest — including first place for best in-depth reporting for an article about a chronic problem of cold water in dormitory showers.
The university's administration wasn't pleased with that story or others about student complaints. So it's no surprise that the eight-page monthly publication doesn't receive a dime in support from the university — not even from student fees.
The Shaw Journal is the official student publication of Shaw University in Raleigh, N.C., but not one issue of the Journal was published during the 1998-99 academic year. One issue was published the year before. As a result, most of Shaw's print journalism students have never written a story for a student newspaper and have no clips to show prospective employers.
At Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio, students worked diligently last fall on the student newspaper, The Gold Torch. They wrote articles about homecoming festivities, reductions in the school's athletic programs, plans for new construction and various entertainment events. None of the stories appeared in The Gold Torch — because the paper was never published.
While Central State's administration provides limited funds to the mass communications program for a student newspaper, the faculty adviser to the newspaper teaches four classes, serves as academic adviser for mass communications students and plans an annual media conference.
The Tiger's Roar at Savannah State fared only a bit better. Dedicated students managed to publish one issue of the newspaper during the first semester of this academic year, despite — or because of — a woeful lack of equipment.
Lincoln University in Missouri, known for its annual Unity journalism awards, provided so little space and equipment for its newspaper that only three issues of the Lincoln Clarion came out last semester. The four-page tabloids, little more than newsletters, materialized mainly because the editor used his personal computer at home.
On the flip side of this dismal picture are the professional-looking broad sheets and newsy tabloids being published at such institutions as Florida A&M, Alabama State, Grambling, Howard, Tennessee State, Hampton and North Carolina Central universities, among others.
But even at these universities, whose newspapers are frequent winners of major awards and whose editors often move straight into positions at daily newspapers, formidable problems exist. The most curious is the fact that not one student newspaper at a historically Black institution comes out daily or even four days a week, which is becoming the norm at majority institutions. 
The two schools coming closest are Florida A & M and Howard. The Famuan last August began publishing on Mondays and Thursdays and added an online version of the paper, becoming the first HBCU student paper to be published more often than once a week. At Howard, although The Hilltop comes out weekly, as it has for decades, a second paper, The Community News, is also published weekly as a lab project of the journalism department.