Hello everyone! Since the last semester ended, I have not post any stories on my blog. Sorry about that!
Because I just joined, the Defender, our school’s newspaper team this semester, I want to particularly introduce the campus newspaper in American Universities/Colleges. The college newspaper is the most traditional and common medium that plays an important role to deliver college’s news, spread campus cultures, and illustrate special features on campus. Most colleges/universities have their own newspaper. Usually, the newspaper is widely read by undergraduates, graduate students, staff, and faculty members widely on campus.
The big difference between American college newspapers and Chinese university newspaper is that the college newspapers is not founded and organized by the school’s authorization. In some large universities, there is a specific student business board and a full-time general to operate the press together on campus. For example, the Yale Daily News, one of the most well known campus newspaper in the U.S, and they produce daily print newspaper on campus. However, at Saint Michael’s College, since we are not a huge university and we do not have a student board to operate, the department who is in charge of our own press is Media Studies/ Journalism department. Our newspaper is called, The Defender, and we, the students and we publish our newspaper every two weeks on campus, working with two faculty advisers. Read our press’ online version here: http://defender.smcvt.edu
Another big difference is that the college newspaper is student-centered is the U.S. The Chinese universities newspaper usually talks about the “big things” about the school, and it always relates to the campus political events. For instance, the newspaper would cover whom the president and secretary have met today, what kinds of meeting the school has this week, or what kind of the new reputation the school has. On the other hand, in American universities, the press usually introduces “small things” to students because it wants students to know what is really happening around them. It does not only cover the campus lives, athletes updates, or special events, it also reflects the idea of the educational system in the U.S.
