Professor creates local newspaper
Although newspapers across the country are struggling to stay afloat or shutting down production all together, the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications is starting a community newspaper in the South Side neighborhood of Syracuse.
It’s called The Stand, and it is a monthly newspaper that focuses on issues of the South Side since the debut of its first paper Saturday. Steve Davis, the newspaper department chair in Newhouse, started the paper as part of a collaborative effort between Syracuse University and the South Side. SU students and South Side residents work together to produce the paper.
The Stand will have a ‘classic, general newspaper and magazine ethos … (with) many different voices shown and heard,’ Davis said.
The goal of the paper is to make a ‘positive impact on the community by introducing youth and residents to opportunities in journalism while also helping college journalism students gain essential skills needed in their future fields,’ according to The Stand’s Web site.
Davis said he has poured years of work and his personal time to plan out and launch the paper. The Stand launched its Web site before the paper itself.
He said a printed newspaper would be beneficial to the South Side because it is an area with lower-income households and less accessibility to the Internet and online news compared to other neighborhoods in the city.
The project is part of the South Side Initiative, a program designed by SU to reach out to members of the Syracuse community. The initiative falls under the umbrella of a set of programs started by Chancellor Nancy Cantor to improve the city of Syracuse with the help of SU.
‘Our goal is to have a paper where you can see what’s going on in your community,’ said Ashley Hart, director of The Stand and a 2004 SU graduate.
The paper will have more feature stories and profiles of people in the community than other newspapers, she said.
Students in Newhouse classes are writing, editing, designing and fact-checking for The Stand. Freelance photographers from the school and the community collaborate to shoot photos for the all-color paper. Some members of the community are hired and paid to write on an article-by-article basis.
Davis said he hopes The Stand will eventually become a private paper that is run by members of the community and helps to create community jobs.
‘I think having a community paper will last a lot longer than papers that pull their information from the wire services,’ Hart said.
Published on February 17, 2010 at 12:00 pm
