CU's Campus Press Fights for Independence

Yulsman insists that he's always been in favor of Press independence even though he circulated a February 23 draft plan that called for the publication to collaborate more closely with Newsteam, the school's broadcast arm, "with the goal of creating a unified multimedia online news publication for the SJMC." Since Newsteam is a lab, the Press would almost certainly have lost its independence in the configuration, which explains why students felt Yulsman favored such a change. But Yulsman says he simply hadn't registered this prospect — "People pointed it out to me, and I went, 'Duh'" — and now leans toward other ideas. Perhaps, for example, the school could facilitate the Press's independence and then create a new combined publishing-and-broadcast entity that would allow instructors to vet material in advance. While such a setup might seem to make investigations casting the university in a bad light less likely, he feels that strong advisers willing to back students against administrators "when they've got the goods" would mitigate the problem.

In Yulsman's view, the "Asians" brouhaha demonstrates the need for more adviser involvement in the present Press model, too. Herdy abides by the code of ethical behavior established by the College Media Advisers organization; it calls for student-media gurus to "defend and teach without censoring, editing, directing or producing." As such, she didn't read Karson's piece until after it went live. Had Yulsman been in her position, he says he would have asked students to show him anything potentially incendiary, and if "Asians" had been submitted, "I wouldn't have told them not to publish — but I would have said, 'You really shouldn't publish this, and if you do, you'll look really stupid.' And theoretically, if I run afoul of some board somewhere, I don't care." He doesn't see such a policy as prior restraint, since "I'm not telling them not to do it." As for the question of whether reviewing material in advance would have a chilling effect on student independence, he notes that "I'm the teacher, and they're doing it for credit. If it chills, it chills."

Of course, the combined news-broadcast model gives CU little incentive to continue funding the Press. The site's budget is quite modest in the overall scheme of things: $35,000 per annum, with another $56,000 going toward Herdy's salary. Yulsman isn't certain the creation of a new entity would eat up all of these funds, but under the independence scenario, he thinks the Press would have to move out of its newsroom and pay for its own space — something that would further drive up expenses. Hewlings understands the challenges inherent in this scenario and says they'll all be addressed in a business plan she and her fellow student journalists are conceiving with pro bono assistance from Aurora's Jim Birschbach, a media-sales pro who's worked with ESPN and Google. Still, it's hard to see how even the most efficient advertising staff could generate enough revenue to cover such costs, especially allowing for the Press's loss of its print editions a couple of years ago.

In the meantime, Voakes's tenure as dean is up for review; he should know within the next month or two if he'll be reappointed for another five-year term. (Faculty members made their recommendations about him last November, prior to the Karson calamity.) He hopes a plan for the Press will be in place before then — perhaps by semester's end — and promises that if independence wins the day, CU will make the publication's survival and continuing viability a top priority. He's optimistic of success, partly because of the statement read by Yulsman, which he sees as "a step forward" that should help break down the distrust between the journalism faculty and the Press staff.

That'll be a big job. Hewlings says she was "disappointed with the way the meeting took place. I thought there wasn't a lot of respect from the faculty to the students. I thought there was a lot of ridicule." For his part, Yulsman chalks up much of the friction to the decision to let outsiders, including media members, attend the session. "I don't think faculty enjoy having their faculty meetings in public," he concedes.

Not even the faculty member who seems to enjoy the spotlight most.