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Student Media Gone

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Re: Student Media Gone

Postby skyscraper » Fri May 04, 2018 4:58 pm

midwestpony wrote:As a current student I can honestly say no one reads the daily campus in print. Some people would read the online articles but with today's changing media landscape they were behind on the times. I have spoken to administrators about the paper. The Journalism Dean will be sure to maintain its total independence from school oversight.


I have no issue with people who want to debate the quality of the paper. It is a bunch of college kids, after all. I also have no doubt that people weren't reading a one a week print paper.
But the idea that anything dangerous to the school [ie: investigative] is going to come out of a school-run paper is laughable. This is SMU we're talking about.
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Re: Student Media Gone

Postby Julian Grendel » Fri May 04, 2018 5:27 pm

Did anything 'dangerous' come out of it recently?
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Re: Student Media Gone

Postby midwestpony » Fri May 04, 2018 9:58 pm

Yeah nothing really dangerous or investigative. In senate we talk about and address more "hard hitting items". Many of which are generally small time fixable items.
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Re: Student Media Gone

Postby b_caesar » Mon May 07, 2018 3:44 pm

Greenwich Pony wrote:I understand that the board of the SMC is a separate corporation (and one that has been negligently run at best), but SMU did actively weaken the SMC with past decisions, and it could have founds means either means to either help maintain an independent student media, or could step in with systems and protocols to maintain the independence of the student media beyond just a wink from the journalism department. It is the fox promising to run the hen house. The silence and inactivity of the administration speaks volumes about their approach to this problem, especially in today's media environment.

Since we seem to be maintaining the argument that SMU and SMC are at more than an arms length, I wonder what SMU is paying for the acquisition of the SMC's intellectual property. I agree that the quality over the past thirty years has been up and down, and I have on occasion taken issue with DC writers. The loss of the print edition is regrettable but not really the point since the online edition, yearbook and whatever else they would continue to publish should be free from university interference.


Could you enlighten us on any of those past decisions that SMU made that could have possibly had any impact on an independently-run SMC? And why should SMU be responsible for helping to maintain any other non-profit company that should also remain independent from SMU? Could you perhaps be more specific with those systems and protocols that could maintain such independence? And where did you see that SMU was going to pay for any of SMC's IP? It seems to me that you're wanting to blame SMU for the demise of a company over which they had absolutely no control while also wanting the University to somehow save SMC financially and also have it continue to operate as an independent news source, free from any interference from the very entity that you're wanting to save it? Am I understanding all that correctly?
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Re: Student Media Gone

Postby Greenwich Pony » Tue May 08, 2018 4:36 pm

Happily. SMU changed the student fee formula to exclude the student media, thereby creating an additional economic hardship on the SMC at a time when revenues were thin. It has assisted with no fundraising efforts whatsoever, even though in the last month or so they had a huge fundraising day for student organizations. Was student media listed? Nope. SMU has done nothing to assist the SMC, it has not set up any form or guaranty of student independence within the school of journalism; no board, no process that allows for fair material review. It is true that the board and leadership of the SMC has been almost criminally negligent in handling their responsibilities and disinterested in continuing or even doing. SMU does not carry all the blame, but they are what is left. Does SMU has a legal obligation to help the SMC? No. Absolutely not.

Does a free media benefit the SMU community and SMU's academic reputation within a symbiotic relationship? Yes, absolutely. It provides at least a theoretical check and watchdog for the institution, is a demonstrated commitment to free expression and the marketplace of ideas, say nothing for invaluable journalist/media training that student simply don't get otherwise.

As to SMU paying for SMC's IP, I didn't see anything that said that, but if, on the one hand, SMU is a separate entity with no obligation to assist the SMC, then by the same token, SMU therefore does not have the right to pick up the IP without paying something for it either. They are assets from another corporation and should be put up for sale. SMU should be banned from using SMC copyrighted materials unless they pay a fair purchase price, just like every other entity. Those copyrights represent a fair amount of SMU history and should be sold to the highest bidder just like when any other company is liquidated.

The SMC leadership is to blame for the demise of the SMC, but SMU could certainly have encouraged or assisted the SMC as a valuable institutional asset but instead assisted in it's demise. SMU's silence and inaction speak volumes for SMU's values. We are willing to spend millions on a barn in the center of campus for a sports program that nobody seems to care enough about to actually attend games or be legitimately competitive, yet we can't seem to find the money to protect a key American and academic value? If that's the case, then perhaps SMU should look at getting out of the education business. It's apparently not what we want to do.

But then, to be perfectly fair, maybe we should get out of the athletics business. We're really not good or that committed to athletics either.
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Re: Student Media Gone

Postby 1017 Mustang » Thu May 10, 2018 1:37 pm

Losing our 90 year independent paper is a bad look. These are the types of traditions that bring prestige to an academic institution probably at a greater rate than a successful athletic program. We want more students who are passionate about writing and journalism. We also want all of our students to understand the appropriate function of an independent press as an institution--something we are losing everywhere.

This is a dumb and short-sighted loss. Surely the school could have made yearly taxable write off donation to the non-profit to keep it running...or just footed the bill outright for the good of the school.

These types of decisions as people said earlier are the antithesis of smart academic moves. And we seem to be continually make them--see shutting down the "Southern Methodist University Press," increasing tuition annually and not matching these increases with grants or scholarships.

And people wonder why our rankings remain stagnant or dropping nationally.
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Re: Student Media Gone

Postby Greenwich Pony » Fri May 11, 2018 10:19 am

Well said.
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Re: Student Media Gone

Postby Nedward » Tue May 15, 2018 8:31 pm

Greenwich...I was willing to give your unabashed admiration of the Daily Campus a long leash until you agreed that the existence of the Daily Campus is more important to the University than a successful athletic program.
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Re: Student Media Gone

Postby Greenwich Pony » Thu May 17, 2018 12:33 pm

Oh, I don't admire the DC. At times, I thought the reporting and writing at times was terrible and should have been higher quality, but that is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. This isn't about Pulitzer prize winning journalism (though I wish that was the case). The point is that an independent student media is very important to the mission of a university.

I also didn't say athletics were unimportant, however I am pointing out that we steadfast have refused to run a successful athletic program over the past 30 years either, yet we dump a fortune into it. Since we are ostensibly an academic educational institution, it's not the paper so much as the commitment to an independent and free marketplace of ideas that is more important, especially since the investment is relatively small compared to the investments we regularly make in other less-critical and certainly less competitive efforts.
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Re: Student Media Gone

Postby EastStang » Mon May 21, 2018 2:43 pm

Having been on the DC staff in the dark ages, I would add a few things. (1) Putting it under the Journalism Department would have meant that a business major like me, would not be writing for the DC. (2) Teachable moment can occur between students. I remember one Aggie/SMU basketball game where the Aggie coach went ballistic kicking over tables and throwing chairs. I was excited about writing that article and even had some great caption for the photo. Alas there was no photo. The photographer shot all his film in the first half and left. Hence the teachable moment, I told him that in sports you should never shoot all your film in the first half, because something may happen in the second that might be your opportunity to catch on film something that is special. I added that had he stayed and shot film in the second half, he probably would have had a wire photo.
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