I’ve been thinking more about The Cavalier Daily against the larger backdrop of collegiate journalism. The Cavalier Daily is a fairly unique newspaper. While the University has a Department of Media Studies, there is no formal school of journalism. The University is also a decidedly medium-sized school, especially among public universities. Such schools have, it turns out, low likelihood of having a student-led (much less entirely student-run) newspaper that turns out new content daily online. That is, the students running The Cavalier Daily are pushing forward doing something that few publications can manage.
A new project called the Student Media Map, started by Bobby Blanchard, a senior journalism major at University of Texas, is tracking the publication status at almost 600 schools. About 100 schools don’t have a newspaper at all. The others are assessed based on frequency of publication. The Cavalier Daily appears to be at the leading edge in terms of implementing technology (a working RSS feed) and having daily updates of content across all areas of the paper. As of Sunday Nov. 2, only 22 percent of college newspapers are updated online daily. The percentages skew toward larger schools: the bigger the school the (much) higher likelihood that there are daily updates. The bottom line is that the number of schools that have a student run paper that publishes daily content online is quite small.
All of this is to reflect in part on the accomplishments of the Cavalier Daily staff and to think more about the purpose of the paper itself. On the reader side, the paper should, as I’ve written previously, inform, educate and prompt engagement with the community and with ideas. On the staff and writing side, though, it can be a great many things: a creative outlet, a training ground for future work, a way to learn new skills and so on. All of these, it seems to me, are good and worthwhile ends. In that context, perhaps sometimes the content is not as important as the form. That is, the specific topics of Opinion editorials are not as important as the fact that they are cogently argued and well crafted. While I do think the columns sometimes fall short on those counts, it is important to remember that these are still students who are, largely, figuring it out on the fly and on their own. If you look back over the publishing history of each columnist I think you’ll find that the quality of the arguments improves significantly over time. Of course this only makes sense — practice and perfection and all. Though I have and do wish for more digital content, The Cavalier Daily also pushes out a fairly significant set of twitter streams, has an active Facebook page and has both IOS and Android apps.
The Cavalier Daily, then, is using technology in a more advanced way than most public university student newspapers. Further, I think the paper is working as a training ground to improve writing and editing skills. The data from the Student Media Map tells me that The Cavalier Daily could distinguish itself even further among collegiate dailies by expanding its online footprint. Further, as columnists especially become more adept with their arguments, more links to other work (both in and outside of The Cavalier Daily) help make those columns more robust. Links to further reading about topics would also help readers. Using links effectively along with the rest of the technology The Cavalier Daily already employs, The Cavalier Daily could leverage their daily content to become more of a portal for the University community to access relevant information both locally and nationally.
Christopher Broom is The Cavalier Daily’s public editor. He can be reached at publiceditor@cavalierdaily.com or on Twitter at @cdpubliceditor.
Read More
PARTING SHOT: No man is an island
By Ava MacBlane | 15 hours agoRetirement, as you can tell, has been treating me well. When people ask me now if I miss it, I laugh and tell them some things I definitely don't miss. But I don't always get to tell them about the things I really do miss.
PARTING SHOT: You never know unless you try
By Lexi Baker | YesterdayMy time at the University was shaped by the people who showed me grace and kindness and by those who had confidence in me, even when I struggled to have it in myself.
PARTING SHOT: A love letter to Cav Daily and Connection
By Ava Proehl | YesterdayMy time here taught me to look for the genuine, human connection in every moment.
