There’s something about the idea of big media companies owning student newspapers that really disturbs me. Probably because Canadian student newspapers tend to be run by volunteers, and exploiting volunteer labour for profit sounds, you know, wrong.
An aberration, or a growing trend?
Well, jeez, maybe they’d be paid for a change.
(not that I am advocating subsidies for spoiled uni kids to pursue their extracurrics)
(but debt is much harsher *after* the citizen journalism thrill wears off and the experience means zip to employers)
(however, who in God’s green earth would actually pay for a campus newspaper (besides alum) is beyond me)
I don’t know about “experience means zip to employers.” I was hired by The Gazette originally largely because of my experience at The Link.
For people going into journalism, it helps a lot.
Maybe, but I’m sure the j-school diploma didn’t hurt.
Returning to the article, can’t similar (if not more professional) journalism experience be gained by working for a corporate school paper? Unpaid internship = untold rewards, and better to do it part-time while in school than as a newly-minted graduate trying to stay afloat…
I worked for a nasty man that figured being a ‘citizen journalist’ would be reward enough for video journalists from around the world.
That never sat right with me. Essentially as the senior video editor, I would be paid, but the citizen journalists that never surfaced would get nothing while we profited by distributing the video itself or through ad revenue.
We did get an email one day with just such a person that claimed to have a very important news video and wanted to be paid for his trouble…. I never saw the video because when it came right down to it, the boss wasn’t willing to put any money behind his ‘world changing’ idea.
And in my very long year of employment with this guy, no citizen journalist’s work was ever posted on the website.
Sad and true.