Canadian University Press, a 75-year-old cooperative of post-secondary student newspapers across Canada, might not live to see its 80th birthday.
Erin Hudson, its current president, is doing everything she can to keep it running, including launching a public fundraising campaign seeking $50,000 in donations. That month-and-a-half campaign ended on Monday, having failed to reach even one fifth of its goal. But the struggle to keep it alive continues.
What is CUP?
Canadian University Press started in 1938, and is a national association of student newspapers (despite its name, it also includes papers at other post-secondary schools like technical institutes and CEGEPs, though the vast majority are universities). In exchange for a yearly membership fee, which is on a sliding scale based on a paper’s overall budget — for most it’s a few hundred or a few thousand dollars — CUP provides a range of services.
The biggest one, which many members have historically believed is the only one, is a newswire service. It takes stories submitted by member papers, as well as some original stories written by a national bureau chief and until recently regional bureau chiefs, and distributes them to members so they can be republished in their papers.
But probably the most important one — and the most intangible — is a resource network that can help in times of need. There’s a lawyer that can provide legal advice in case of the threat of a libel suit. There’s a president at a national office in Toronto that can write letters of condemnation if a student union or university administration is trying to stifle freedom of the press. And there’s an email list where members can seek out advice or otherwise communicate with each other.
CUP also organizes a national conference every year, hosted by a different member paper each time. Attendees pay to enter, and it’s open to non-members, but members get a significant discount on entry fees. The national conference, as well as regional conferences, provide workshops and lectures from experts who give invaluable advice to student journalists. The conferences are also how the cooperative organization makes important decisions through a democratic process.