Pennsylvania School Press Association

Recently a student newspaper-related controversy arose over a front page endorsement of Barack Obama in the Cumberland Valley CV Eye Update.

The unusual article ran after equal coverage of both candidates had been published in previous editions of the paper. The staff, however, felt that these articles were not receiving enough attention, and they wanted to draw the attention of their classmates to the election.

“We ran a front page endorsement to make sure people saw it. We had been running a back-page feature covering the candidate’s platforms on the major issues, [but] we weren’t seeing much of a reaction,” senior Elliott Gluck said.

Gluck is the editor of CV Eye Update, and says that the staff was excited about the endorsement. After receiving approval from their advisers, and checking to make sure that they were legally allowed, they made the decision who the Update would endorse as a staff.

“I think that it is important for people to know that this was the decision of the entire staff and that each and every voice was heard. The members of our paper were all informed about the issues surrounding the election and each candidate’s platform. If they felt as though they were not informed enough to vote on one of the issues, they simply put ‘undecided,’” Gluck said.

The staff felt that the importance of this election outweighed the possible negative responses to article.

Gluck explained that the original idea for an election coverage series was his last year. He had always planned to run a series of informative pieces about the issues, eventually ending the coverage with an endorsement, and his staff and editors agreed. The entire point of the election coverage and endorsement was to get the attention of students. It being an election of consequence, they did not want to let it pass without garnering students’ interest.

“We expected the administration to be very supportive of our decision. They give us a lot of freedom with what we cover, and the endorsement was not breaking any laws, so we knew they would back us up if any controversy arose,” Gluck said. “I knew there would be people who wouldn’t be happy with our decision to endorse Obama, but we were all shocked about the extreme negativity and uproar from students.”

Students went from apathetic to enraged, because of the Update endorsement, as copies of the newspaper went missing. The staff has their suspicions that students threw them away in the cafeteria, but they have not pressed charges.

Other negative reactions to the endorsement came in the form of comments on Pennlive.com. The staff, however, tried to make the best of the situation.

“We tried to get students who were unhappy about the endorsement to write letters to the editor,” Gluck said.

Their hopes were in vain, however, as they received no letters from students.

“There are a few stories in our upcoming issue about the election results but no direct follow-up to the endorsement,” Gluck said.

The editor says that the only thing he might have changed about the story was the large front page picture of Obama. When students saw it they immediately reacted, some without even reading the actual article.

This type of reaction was not what the staff was looking for. They said that the main point of this endorsement was to get students legitimately involved and interested.

“I stand by our decision to endorse a candidate. The election was far too important to ignore, and out goal as a staff is to be as much like a mainstream newspaper as possible,” Gluck said.

Editors of California High School’s Burgundian listen as Janice Hatfield offers suggestions for improving their newspaper.

Waynesburg University and the Pennsylvania School Press Association collaborated to welcome 177 local yearbook and newspaper students and 11 advisers to Media Day on the University campus on October 30.

Participants included students from Laurel Highlands, Laurel Valley, Belle Vernon, California Area, Bentworth, Carmichaels, Canon McMillan, John Marshall (WV), Greater Latrobe, and Kiski Area High Schools, as well as middle school students from Ben Franklin School.

Cari Frei of Taylor Publishing and Cheryl Franzmann and Kathryn Phillips of Walsworth introduced students to new yearbook trends and offered pointers on yearbook theme development and creating award-winning yearbooks.

Guided by Waynesburg Department  of Communications  Chair, Professor Richard Krause, a team of  Waynesburg’s Communication students, headed by Kristen Corbett, Student Event Coordinator, and Erin Crawshaw, Public Relations senior, planned and implemented the workshop.  Janice Hatfield, Newspaper Chair, represented PSPA in helping to organize the event.

Students could choose sessions on sports writing, convergence, headlines, generating story ideas, feature writing, editorial writing, newsroom, management, feature writing, and newspaper design. On-site critiques of newspapers and yearbooks were also conducted.

Both advisers and students were impressed by the amount of valuable information offered. One adviser described the experience as “very invigorating.”