For col­lege news­pa­pers across the coun­try, the aca­d­e­mic year is wrap­ping up and in the words of the great Bob Dylan, “…the times, they are a changing.”

As edi­tors and staff move on to what­ever is next and lead­er­ship roles are filled by new peo­ple there is a pass­ing of information.

A lot of what you’ll be doing will stay the same. A lot of what you do will get bet­ter. A lot of what you do won’t be fully appre­ci­ated by your read­ers, but we the inky-fingered mem­bers of col­le­giate news­pa­pers are a unique mili­tia of infor­ma­tion. (more…)

Daunt­ing as it may seem, the time is draw­ing near when there will be a life beyond one’s col­lege news­room. (Shock­ing, I know.)

Where that life will be, what it will involve and how to start are all ques­tions young jour­nal­ists, edi­tors, design­ers, web-heads and all of the other peo­ple ded­i­cated to the news media beyond the col­lege level may ask. (more…)

For many col­lege news­pa­pers, the dead­line for get­ting pages to the printer is some­where around mid­night or just after. (more…)

Col­lege news­pa­pers uti­liz­ing social media like Face­book and Twit­ter, or even on the newspaper’s Web site can ben­e­fit from inter­ac­tion between and with their read­ers. How­ever, as com­ment­ing, shar­ing, links and all other becomes an active part of your news orga­ni­za­tion, a pol­icy may be nec­es­sary to main­tain the integrity of the social media.

We’ve had a few inquiries about this. If your paper has a Social Media pol­icy, a resource for one or some­thing else ben­e­fi­cial, please paste it as a com­ment below, or share a link to it.

Odds are, if an orga­ni­za­tion has a Web site, they prob­a­bly also have a Face­book Fan page. Even Col­lege News­room has one.

But for col­lege news­pa­pers, a face­book fan page can cre­ate a forum where com­ments may be less about sto­ries and more about attack­ing writ­ers, staff mem­bers or spread­ing rumors. (more…)

When Wes Mau­rer gets asked what will save news­pa­pers, his sim­pli­fied response is good writ­ing and good journalism.

Mau­rer, the pub­lisher and edi­tor of the St. Ignace News in St. Ignace, Mich. and the Mack­inac Island Town Crier, rep­re­sents an old school style of news­pa­per jour­nal­ism that isn’t focused on tweets and web prowess, but more so the con­tent that fills the space between the reader’s thumbs as they hold the paper in front of their face. (more…)

The Col­lege News­room Team will be attend­ing the Michi­gan Press Asso­ci­a­tions annual con­fer­ence in Grand Rapids, Mich. on Fri­day Jan. 29.

This is a great oppor­tu­nity for the col­lege news­pa­pers of Michi­gan to pose ques­tions (as a com­ment below this post) and get answers.

Let us know what YOU want to know.

Or, if you’re going to be at the con­fer­ence, stop by our table next to the reg­is­tra­tion area.

Look­ing for­ward to meet­ing you.
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Should you use the “N” word?

If your news­pa­per is run­ning a story regard­ing a topic that involves racial slurs (an art exhibit, guest speaker, book release, MLK week) and the “N” word is used, do you print the word in its entirety? Would it be dam­ag­ing to the con­text of the story to replace some let­ters with asterisks?

What if it’s a quote? Main­tain­ing the integrity of a quote is impor­tant in sto­ries, but at the sake of say­ing some­thing that could be dam­ag­ing to the newspaper’s integrity.

Should the race of the reporter mat­ter?
(more…)

When a col­lege news­pa­per makes the tran­si­tion to pull a Web site out of the dark dank closet and make it an inte­gral part of their report­ing, cer­tain tools may be uti­lized to improve cer­tain types of reporting.

www.coveritlive.com is a free ser­vice that allows play-by-play updates with the ease of Twit­ter but the sophis­ti­ca­tion of a cha­t­room. It allows for inter­ac­tion in the form of ques­tions and com­ments posed by the users, the addi­tion of media includ­ing sound, video and pho­tos to be quickly and eas­ily uploaded and best of all, it’s free and easy to use. (more…)

Our hockey team recently beat the N0. 1 ranked team in our league. This is a huge deal because we are not cur­rently ranked.

Here’s the break down: (more…)