|
Here at Spartan Edge we remain independent. Nobody tells us what to write or how to write it, and nobody censors our words once we do write them. And we like it like that. Sure, sometimes we don’t get complete access to sources and we don’t give you daily news, but in the end, we produce quality writing in a niche on campus that was unfilled until we came along – that of the multimedia-driven Web site. To us, this is what college media should be – produced wholly by the students. Because what better learning experience are you going to have as a young journalist? We don’t have to listen to “adults,” and we get to say what we want. The downside overriding all of this is that we don’t pay our writers. We barely have a budget big enough to serve pizza at end-of-the-year parties, and we sure as hell can’t afford a fancy office building on Grand River. We would love to have a professional redesign the Web site, but we’re stuck with doing it ourselves as we learn and experiment with design programs on our own time. We don’t have money for big promotions, so we chalk our name on the sidewalks to attract the attention of passersby and wandering inebriated football fans looking for a port-a-potty on game days. But we kind of like it this way. It would be nice to have something of a budget, but we don’t believe that journalists working for college publications should be paid by the school. Once the school starts handing money to a college paper or publication, then the paper is automatically compromised in what it can, or feels necessary, to report. This is not to diss the State News. The newspaper is a wonderful source of news for students here. But our main concern is this: can you really report everything, good and bad, about the school if you’re getting paid by that school itself? The most important thing is to be independent from your sources (any ethics class here at State, no matter how redundant it can get, definitely drills this in your brain). Alternative media on campus, like Spartan Edge, can give you just that. We aren’t tied down by anyone, and it’s mostly just a rag-tag group of students working furiously each week or month to put together each issue. OK, we’d love to be able to pay our writers (from our own budget, not from the school’s). But honestly, if you’re writing for a campus publication just for that paycheck, then you have your priorities a little skewed. And maybe we at Spartan Edge work a little bit harder and write a little bit better because we’re not paid. We have to stand on our work alone, not on the money that comes with it. It’s not like we can write crappy stories and still feel good about them because we’re taking home a paycheck at the end of the day – we only have our words and our videos and our photos as payment. But that, to us, is the best part of journalism. |
|
