From sj-approval Fri May 26 14:13:00 1995 Return-Path: Received: by world.std.com (5.65c/Spike-2.0) id AA23875; Fri, 26 May 1995 20:13:05 -0400 Received: from audumla.students.wisc.edu (students.wisc.edu) by world.std.com (5.65c/Spike-2.0) id AA23845; Fri, 26 May 1995 20:13:03 -0400 Received: from F180-089.net.wisc.edu by audumla.students.wisc.edu; id TAA25040; 8.6.9W/42; Fri, 26 May 1995 19:13:00 -0500 Date: Fri, 26 May 1995 19:13:00 -0500 Message-Id: <199505270013.TAA25040@audumla.students.wisc.edu> X-Sender: jedelman@students.wisc.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: sj@world.std.com From: jedelman@students.wisc.edu (Josh Edelman) Subject: Re: Cadence Funding X-Mailer: Sender: sj-approval@world.std.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: sj Jascha Franklin-Hodge writes: >I'm curious to know how many other high school papers are >independently funded. Well, at least one more :). I'm the Editor-in-Chief of The Independent, a (you guessed it) independent paper in Madison, Wisconsin. We publish at a public high school of around 1600 students, and are thinking of expanding our circulation to one or two more schools next year. We're funded almost exclusively through advertising. It's a unstable situation at best, but it's far better than taking school funding and sujbjecting the paper to that kind of censorship. We came into being four years ago. The then-award-winning official school paper, the Swond & Shield, published a front-page article entitled "Average black GPA remains at D+" about the continuing imbalance between white and minority grade pt. averages. The response, both positive and negative, was overwhelming. Our principal began 'previewing' the paper to "uphold community values." Two months later, she would not allow the S&S to print the name of a student involved in a gang shooting on the south side. (Coincidentially, he was the star running back of the football team. Hmmm.....) The paper offered to print merely a black box in place of the article -- the principal refused, asking her explanation to be printed word-for-word. That was too much for the staff. Everyone but one typesetter resigned in protest. And now, four years later, the paper set up by the resignees (The Indy) has published 40 issues and is in the process of building its fifth editorial staff. The school made an effort to resurect the staffless S&S; they gave the EIC post to someone who had never written for a paper in his life. They now publish infrequently and poorly, but their existence saves much face for the school. We do not enjoy all the luxuries Cadence does -- our printer demands their fair share of profits, and the community is too apathetic to give us much support. But I'm quite glad to hear that there are other 'free' student journalists out there who can empathize with what we're going through. I'd be happy to tell more about my paper, if anyone is interested, and would love to hear about any others, if you'd be willing to share. Sorry for the length of this post. I'm trained to fill space :) -Josh ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Josh Edelman jedelman@students.wisc.edu "Lord, what fools these mortals be!" -Shakespere ~~~~~~~~~~~~