Ryan Macfarlane, the national executive of the Canadian University Press (CUP), a non-profit co-operative student newswire service, spoke with the Charlatan about the importance of campus press outlets.
Campus press: a forum for experimentation
Macfarlane said he believes student papers are still valuable to the post-secondary community.
“I believe that campus newspapers, because of how flexible they are, are in a really good position to redefine themselves,” Macfarlane said.
“Larger media might adopt new things but more slowly because they’re balancing business concerns, while student media is defined by its experimentalism . . . [Student papers] are willing to take risks.”
Macfarlane said that despite the struggles some campus newspapers in Canada have been having, he doesn’t think the problems of student publications are as troubling as those of larger newspapers.
“Struggle happens all the time—there’s always issues with funding coming up for review, [but] I don’t think there’s a crisis in student media now in the way that there is in corporate media,” Macfarlane said.
Digital vs. print
Although some student papers have made the switch from print publications to online-only, Macfarlane said he doesn’t think this will be a widespread movement.
“I don’t think all papers will go digital-only. I think there’s a trend towards digital-first,” Macfarlane said.
Macfarlane compared the trend of morning newspaper deliveries to morning news broadcasts, and how the main goal of each development in the industry was to “get the news out faster,” which is what campus newspapers are looking at too.
When an event happens on a university campus, that university’s newspaper is in a unique position considering that the school is their home base, Macfarlane said.
“There’s always value in print,” Macfarlane said.
However, Macfarlane said the decision of a student paper to go digital-only or continue with print and digital publication is a decision each paper will have to make on its own terms in accordance with its own vision and values.
