With the recent loss of Ventura, Oxnard, and Moorpark College’s “Student Voice,” the age of newsprint in our community colleges seems to be coming to an end.
As a reporter for the Roundup, it’s a shame to see the hard work of other student-run papers be condemned to the internet.
Sure, they’ll still have their online element and that’s where the trend is headed, but there’s a certain satisfaction that comes from picking up a newspaper and seeing your name in print that only these writers will know.
I can already see myself decades from now telling future generations about how I used to get my news, starting off with a hearty “Back in my day…”
I remember myself a couple of years ago, in the fall of 2009 reporting on the loss of College of the Canyon’s print-edition “Canyon Call.” What I understood back then, when I first started writing for the Roundup, is that many community college students simply didn’t care about what was going on around their campus.
They’re in and they’re out.
What I understand now is that student-run papers provide a service to their college communities, providing them with accurate and relevant information because they actually care.
That’s right, they are doing it for you, the reader.
It is for this reason, that a print-edition is so vital to a community college campus such as Pierce. It is a tangible form of what the college is as a whole, printing weekly, available to you throughout campus, presenting you a vivid picture of the students, faculty, and farm animals that inhabit these 420 acres of land in Woodland Hills, Calif.
As most of the stories in any student paper will tell you, “these losses are due to the California statewide budget cuts,” but the reason to why we’re cutting money from education is still beyond me.
Aside from The Roundup, the only other print-edition in the Los Angeles Community College District that I am aware of is Valley College’s Valley Star and I’m not so sure how long that’s going to last given this budget crisis.
Along with the loss of the major book retailer Borders and the decline in sales at Pierce College’s bookstore it is clear that we are moving away from print and into the digital age.
Long Live Print!
