The Beat Goes On At OC

Andrew Binion writes:

A story in the Seattle P-I earlier this week sounded the cry over the shuttering of community college newspapers, and the doom that spells for a democratic society.

But one such student-run paper that enjoys high student interest, support from administrators and dedication from staffers is The Olympian, the twice-a-month paper with a circulation of 2,000 that is of, by and for students of Olympic College. The paper also has an online edition. Editors and advisers from The Olympian, an hour-long ferry ride from downtown Seattle, were not mentioned in the story.

“Fortunately, here we are doing well,” said Michael Prince, journalism instructor and adviser to the Olympian. Prince arrived at the school in 2006. Prior to that the school did not have a full-time journalism guru.

“They (administrators) very easily could have let it go away, but they committed to it,” he said.

The Olympian currently has five paid staff members, and may add one or two more in the coming weeks. Additionally the paper has about a dozen contributors.

The thinking goes, if community college students aren’t pounding the beats during their first two years of post-secondary education, they won’t be in shape to work for their university daily – such as the Daily Evergreen at WSU or The Daily at UW. And each step they take toward professional journalism they will shamble behind those who started cutting their teeth as a college freshman.

And if journalists aren’t properly broiled and salted at their university papers, they won’t be able to do “real” reporting when they graduate and try to set up a kiosk in the marketplace of ideas. Then we’ll have chaos, dogs and cats living together, etc.

As P-I reporter Amy Rolph points out, several Western Washington community college papers have been petering away, because, as Rolph put it, “the undeniable fact that can’t be trumped. … Nobody’s reading anymore.”

(By the way, this is not a slam on Rolph. Her story was well-written, interesting and important. It’s just that the good work of The Olympian was not mentioned among other papers not doing so well.)

The story listed community college papers from Tacoma to North Seattle that have stalled and featured reader quotes and comments of righteous indignants upset that amateur publications are so amateurish.

It’s a simple answer, and tempting to believe, that people are just stupider.

Prince said the success of The Olympian has less to do with literacy than with administrators hiring a full-time journalism instructor/adviser and staying out of decision-making. As noted in the story, schools without vibrant papers appear to have administrators who are, at best, indifferent.

Plus, Bremerton is separated from Pugetopolis by jellyfish-infested Puget Sound creating an alcove that generally isn’t represented by any other paper. Except (ahem) for the Sun. Some Kitsap students, however, attend Seattle Central Community College – Broadway High to us alumni.

An illustrative example of the importance of The Olympian to the community can be seen in a protest April 2007, where a considerably-large group of students took exception to a full-page ad from a local strip club fishing for fresh bodies to don fishnets. The students protested outside the offices, called out the paper’s editor and demanded administrators stop the ad, which featured young women three-quarters unclad.

The college’s board responded by approving a resolution disagreeing with the decision and left it at that.

But that process, 1) the publishing of the ad, which required staffers to make a very serious decisions 2) the objections of students who organized opposition to the ad and 3) the powers-that-be respecting the paper’s free speech rights, showed that not only is The Olympian doing well, it is helping to foster a sense of community, something that can be woefully lacking from the community college experience.