After 81 years as a student-run First Amendment newspaper, the future of The San Matean is in jeopardy. Faculty-driven recommendations for restructuring the journalism program threaten the paper as a bi-weekly news medium.A faculty committee presented recommendations from a Program Improvement Viability review that included journalism courses to the Academic Senate in December. The PIV document makes a point that the newspaper needs to be improved: "This committee does not want to impact students' First Amendment rights to choose the stories covered, but to make this print product one that reflects well on this program and the campus."
"I respect and understand First Amendment rights, and a student paper should be produced by students with no interference," wrote President Michael Claire in an e-mail. "But with that right comes the responsibility of producing an accurate paper that is well written."
While The San Matean appreciates the stated intention of both the faculty and the president to respect First Amendment rights, both statements indicate a desire to control the quality of the newspaper.
The school cannot stop speech because it does not make the school look favorable, said Adam Keigwin, chief of staff for Senator Leland Yee, a champion of student First Amendment rights. Misspellings and grammar are protected speech; unless you are committing libel, this is covered by the First Amendment, Keigwin said.
While The San Matean strives for quality and has won many awards, the purpose of a student-run First Amendment newspaper is not to "reflect well" on the campus. The purpose of a student newspaper is to provide campus news coverage and to help students to learn the craft of journalism. A large part of that learning is experiential, and includes making, and learning from, mistakes.
Every publication includes mistakes. The PIV document itself uses "breath" for "breadth" several times. The San Matean strives for accuracy and prints corrections for errors.
One of the recommendations in the PIV document is consolidating communications and media courses under a single digital media program. Classes for the new program are being piloted this fall.
The PIV reads: "There would be five capstone opportunities for the media students . The San Matean, or a similar newspaper, would be the first capstone class/project. The current newspaper publication should be put on a short hiatus and then resurrected and incorporated into this new program. The hiatus is necessary for more investigation to be done on how other college newspapers function, verifying that our program is robust, challenging and one to be proud of."
"The paper is not being cancelled, the paper is not going on hiatus," said Kathy Ross, dean of business and technology.
A study of community college journalism programs conducted by journalism professor Toni Albertson at Mt. San Antonio College revealed that of 19 programs put on hiatus, none were restored. The San Matean appreciates faculty efforts to revamp communications curriculum represented in the PIV, and the administration's decision to not place the newspaper on hiatus while program changes are being implemented.
When Claire was asked if The San Matean would be produced as it is now through journalism courses 120, 300 and 850, he said that he could not make any promises. He offered three possible scenarios: the paper will be produced through the current journalism course offerings, the paper will be produced through the new digital media courses, or the newspaper will be produced through independent study courses.
Once the department has its budget this summer, the classes that will produce the paper can be determined, said Ross.
The courses listed in the digital media pilot program include Media in Society, Media Law and Ethics, and Writing Across the Media. The only course that mentions writing for any product is Writing Across the Media. In this course students will learn how to write for a variety of forms of media including news for print and electronic media, as well as pubic relations, advertising, and marketing.
The San Matean is created from several classes. Journalism 120 includes 2 hours of class time plus three required lab hours a week. Journalism 300 includes 2 hours of class time plus six lab hours a week, and can be repeated three times. Journalism 850 is a flexible class meeting one hour a week.
'Writing Across the Media,' is two hours and forty minutes twice a week with no lab component and cannot be repeated.
The idea that the paper could be created through this digital media course is not feasible. How would students have time to create a bi-weekly paper when learning how to write for all these different media forms at the same time? It is impossible to create a bi-weekly paper from such a course.
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