| College Issue by Robin Wright Gunn
17
News & Opinion
Write on
University and college media expand in scope and size, while retaining independence
L
Anita Hagin of the Savannah Morning News at the recent AASU Journalism ‘Boot Camp’
University) have expansions planned for this year, flying in the face of national print journalism trends. The Tiger’s Roar is a six page broadsheet (the typical newspaper style layout) that’s published monthly by Savannah State University (SSU) students. The Tiger’s Roar hopes to increase its pages and go to tabloid format (used by Connect Savannah).
The Inkwell recently went to an eight page broadsheet from tabloid, and has its sights set on 12 pages later in the year. Meanwhile, Savannah College of Art and Design’s (SCAD) District is a weekly student publication, a 16-20 page tabloid Like Mensing, Tiger’s Roar Executive Editor Jazzmynn Lewis and District Editor-
in-Chief Lee Burbage focus on university news but try to expand coverage to include non-college news relevant to their readers. “Our readership is students, whether they live on- or off-campus. We want our paper to be relevant to everyone,” says Burbage, a sophomore studying writing and photography.
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Connect Savannah Sept. 12th, 2007 www.connectsavannah.com
ocal university and city police train together following the Virginia Tech shootings. Georgia students become ineligible for HOPE scholarships. A popular university student leader dies just weeks after his leukemia diagnosis. These news items, of interest to many Savannahians, are particularly relevant to the students and faculty of Armstrong Atlantic State University (AASU). And, they are all front page news in the August 23 issue of The Inkwell, AASU’s weekly student newspaper. “Our focus is to report the news in a timely, accurate manner,” says Angela Mensing, AASU senior in Liberal Arts and the new editor-in-chief of The Inkwell. “It’s an Armstrong-focused paper, primarily news that affects our students. “When we say students I’m not talking the typical 18 to 21 year old students. We have a lot of students affected by the military, affected by local and national events. We bring it to the college level and draw a parallel of what’s going on on campus.” Each of the three largest local universities publishes a student-run newspaper, and at least two (at AASU and Savannah State