"What is Media-center? Is it a club?" I was rather shocked when I first heard this question. This is because the answer was right in front of them in the question: the university newspaper is in fact somewhat of a big compilation of hobby clubs. I didn't want to go through the trouble of explaining it twice, so I remember going on about how the university newspaper was not just a simple club even though the other person did not ask. At the time, I thought this was rather a big issue, so I conducted a survey to better understand how students at our university viewed the university newspaper with some actual data.
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The results were shocking. 92.9% of the respondents answered 'no' to the question of "do you know anything about the university newspaper?" In some sense, the results are unsurprising given that the world is rapidly moving away from printed newspapers with the media as a whole facing a crisis, but I felt incredibly dejected from the results. After that, I remember struggling to find a sense of direction again. While school officials asked me to write articles about the university's achievements, my colleagues said that we should write stories that students would care about. However, I rejected both suggestions. Articles about the university's achievements are usually too praise-oriented, and stories such as "No. 1 in the aptitude test" are not going to gain the attention of students. On the other hand, students prefer to be fed stories through diverse media channels like social networks. However, if we completely shifted in this direction, we may end up in a situation where the essence of an article ends up being lost. In other words, we had not to highlight the positive aspects of the university and avoid writing articles that were solely focused on getting clicks. Balancing these two aspects is the first important task of journalists.
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The second task of a university newspaper is to prove that it produces articles of value. In other words, university papers should be able to say that "we do not emphasize just the positive or negative aspects of the university, we write articles by considering the current social situation and students' interests." Reporters need to write articles that satisfy both the school and its students at the same time. Both share a common trait in that new media formats like social networks are preferred, but a school and its students often stand on opposite ends when it comes to criticizing the problems of the university. In such situations, reporters need to carefully consider both positions. This is because university newspapers can play a role in representing the positions of the school and the students at the same time.
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However, this could all seem like a show. Therefore, to prove the value of the university newspaper, I decided to focus more on taking journalism further and expanding the newspaper into different forms of media instead of just emphasizing traditional newspaper values. We landed on the idea of producing card news articles. A professor once advised me to "make what consumers want, not what I want," but after a while, I realized that this advice was not the end-all-be-all. Due to the nature of social networks, most card news articles ended up being more focused on the design rather than the story itself since we had to produce visually eye-catching and concise content. While these card news articles were well-designed and caught the attention of students, the core essence of the article itself was often lost. Moreover, in an era where people do not read beyond the first three lines that provide nothing but a quick synopsis, the card news articles did little to uphold the value of newspapers. Once the card news project ended, we came to the conclusion that "writing ONLY for students is not a good direction." We ultimately came to the realization that the university newspaper needs to first -and-foremost maintain 'the core essence of a newspaper.'
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University newspapers have always been about the pursuit of truth. When traditional media dismissed the facts as lies, university newspapers challenged them with the truth. This may be why we still have university newspapers to this day. However, most university newspapers agree that "a new paradigm is needed." While it is clear that the circumstances have changed due to the development of media, the most important thing to remember is that university newspapers need to show more strength of character. What is the point of a new paradigm if we cannot properly adhere to our original principles? It is vital that newspapers avoid publishing unconfirmed rumors, use unfounded figures or experimental results, or use quotes without proper citations. Irresponsible writing can never be journalism. We will continuously strive to find our way through this whirlpool of journalism. We ask our readers to support us as we continue our journey and move forward.
