This week University of Portland's student newspaper, The Beacon, was evicted from their campus newsroom. According to a news article from The Beacon, the administration will force the staff of 30 students out of their newsroom and into a room half its size - which belongs to the yearbook staff. The yearbook staff will be forced to move to an even smaller space.
The newspaper's (old) space will then be renovated to support campus ministry staff for the Catholic university.
Although University of Portland is over 2,000 miles away from DePauw, this issue hits home with our staff. The Beacon is a very comparable newspaper to The DePauw in terms of resources and quantity of their content.
Hearing about this incident is upsetting because we know firsthand how hard their staff works to produce a product they're proud of. We feel for them - getting kicked out our newsroom the Pulliam Center for Contemporary Media would be our own worst nightmare.
Furthermore, it goes without saying that we are advocates for student media across the board. But what happened at University of Portland is a prime example of how student newspapers across the country have to fight to maintain an understanding of their journalistic purpose. Just like the national media, there is a challenge to maintain a public trust.
The DePauw is fortunate to be self-sufficiently funded, and therefore, independent from the administration.
Despite that, we both must work together to strengthen our relationship day in and day out. Administration works hard to make student's experiences a positive one; we're here to tell DePauw's story. The two goals are not mutually exclusive, and a good student media is a sign of a healthy university.
But we are lucky enough that if - one day - those higher up in the university didn't support us, we have professors from many different departments who would back up student journalism. They believe that what we're doing is benefitting our future careers, but most importantly, benefiting our readers.
We hope that our administration will continue to support us. Campus newspapers, like The DePauw and The Beacon, have the power to create constructive conversation about campus life - both the good and the bad.
It's unfortunate to hear that The Beacon has encountered a major setback in producing their newspaper. But we hope that The Beacon staff doesn't give up in their responsibility to cover issues that are important to their readers.
University of Portland: from our newsroom to yours, we support you.