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| Type | Student newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Tabloid |
| Owner(s) | Independent |
| Founded | 1909 |
| Headquarters | East Lansing,Michigan |
| Website | statenews |
The State News is the studentnewspaper ofMichigan State University inEast Lansing,Michigan. It is supported by a combination ofadvertising revenue and a $7.50[1] refundabletax thatstudents pay at eachsemester'smatriculation. ThoughThe State News is supported by a student tax, thefaculty andadministration do not interfere in the paper'scontent.[citation needed]The State News is governed by aBoard of Directors, which comprises journalism professionals, faculty and students. In 2010, thePrinceton Review rankedThe State News as the #8 best college newspaper in the country.[2] And in 2015, the Society of Professional Journalists named TSN as the nation's best daily college newspaper for 2014.
The State News traces its roots to March 10, 1909.It was first dubbedThe Holcad, chosen by the president of the then-Michigan Agricultural College. Holcad was the name of a ship that carried news from seaport to seaport in ancientGreece. The newspaper was seen as a way for students to defend themselves against charges of hooliganism by theLansing press.
In 1925, the newspaper changed its name to theMichigan State News. Eventually, this got clipped toThe State News. The paper was overseen by a university-run publications board.
In 1971, the newspaper was spun off from the university into a nonprofit corporation, State News Inc., governed by its own board of directors. The move was designed to protect the student publication from interference by university administrators who might disagree with its content. Its incorporation also protected the university from liability of anything published inThe State News. The newspaper's masthead references this, referring to the publication as "Michigan State University's Independent Voice."
In August 2005,The State News moved its offices from the Student Services Building, where it had resided since the building's opening in 1957, to an off-campus location at 435 E. Grand River Ave. Prior to its location at the Student Services Building, the newspaper had its offices in the MSU Union.
In August 2014, the newspaper switched from a broadsheet to a tabloid format, and in April 2015 it ceased publishing a print edition each weekday during the school year, eventually shifting to the current biweekly print format.
On election day, 1948,The State News, going to press at 7 a.m., became the only morning daily to place Harry S. Truman in the lead for president.[citation needed]
In June 1950, the first issue of the summer edition ofThe State News carried an editorial critical of the Michigan Department of theAmerican Legion's Boy's State program held on the Michigan State College campus. Several days later, June 25, North Korea invaded South Korea initiating theKorean War. The following Monday the state American Legion held its summer encampment and adopted a resolution calling for the suspension ofThe State News and the expelling of its student editor, Ron M. Linton. Later that week, Michigan State suspended further summer publication of the paper but declined to expel its editor. The school did, however, announce the appointment of a full-time college employee, William McIlrath, as director of the publication with authority over the paper's content. It was later learned that the school had already planned this action but used this incident as a rationale. This culminated a period of six years—since the end of World War II—of increasing irritation of the school's administration by the independent attitude of the student journalists. Returning veterans were a significant portion of the paper's staff and, being several years older than students enrolled directly from high school and matured by war, they tended to exercise a more critical attitude toward campus events. This led to a series of articles and editorials about the difficulty had by African-American male students in getting haircuts, including the refusal of the Union's barber shop to service African-Americans. It also published a series critical of the school's plan to require male cooperative residences to hire "house mothers"; ultimately, the coops were exempted, but fraternities were not.[3]The State News, to the administration's consternation, exposed the administration's efforts to block unionization of dining room and school service employees.[citation needed]
When the local Congressman demanded in 1950 that Michigan State remove left-leaning economistPaul Douglas (later U.S. Senator from Illinois) from its lecture series, the paper fought back in a series of editorials that resulted in the Congressman turning tail.The State News was the first U.S. daily newspaper, commercial or student, to editorially criticize then-U.S. SenatorJoseph McCarthy (R-WI) for his sweeping charges without proof of communist activities by a number of citizens.[4]
In November 1965, fourState News editors resigned over the faculty adviser's and the lead editor's decision to spike a story involving Paul Schiff, who claimed he was denied re-admission to MSU for his political views.[5]
Internal controversies include a group of junior editors dissatisfied with the editor-in-chief starting a weekly newspaper,Campus Observer, in 1968. The following year, the managing editor took over the editorial reins in response to staff grumbling.
In April 1977, a one-day newsroom staff walkout followed the board's appointment of the next top editor when the staff's recommendation was not picked.
In 2000,The State News publishedFetus-X which regularly contained psychedelic pictures of Jesus breakdancing with dead babies. After protests from theCatholic League,The State News fired artists Eric Millikin and Casey Sorrow.
In 2003, an advertisement printed in theState News showedPalestinians celebrating in the street whileIsraelis lit candles and prayed. The advertisement's caption claimed that these were the reactions to the9/11terrorist attacks. Pro-Palestinian groups protested outside the MSU Student Services building and demanded that their student fees be refunded.
OnVeterans Day, 2005, editorial cartoonist Mike Ramsey drew a piece that showed aWorld War II soldier who liberatedconcentration camps conversing with a modern-day soldier who was shown holding a torture device. In response,Young Americans for Freedom and theCollege Republicans picketed the offices ofThe State News and called for Ramsey's dismissal. Ramsey was not fired.
In 2008, the Michigan Supreme Court heard arguments regardingThe State News' lawsuit against MSU over Freedom of Information Act issues.
The State News received criticism in 2010 for replacing some of its comics with games/puzzles, including new additions of a giant crossword, Octo, Word Finder and Pathem puzzles.[6] In 2010 the State News publishedCrosswords, Pathem puzzles,Sudoku, Octo, Wordplay andWord Search puzzles. As of 2012 The State News continues to support publishing puzzles and games.[7]
In 2018,The State News received national attention for an editorial demanding the resignation of MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon amid fallout from the Larry Nassar sex assault scandal. Simon quit shortly thereafter.
Many of the paper's staffers have gone on to professional internships and jobs at the nation's largest newspapers. Alumni ofThe State News work for news organizations around the world.
The newspaper has won theAssociated Collegiate Press'Pacemaker award 18 times (in 1963, 1966, 1967, 1970, 1986, 1990, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1998, 2003, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2020, and 2021 for print; 2014 and 2018 for online). The award is considered one of college journalism's top prizes. It won in 2003 for coverage of theU.S. invasion of Iraq and a campus riot later in the spring of that year. The State News was also a print Pacemaker finalist in 1987, 2010, 2011, 2017 and 2018 and an online Pacemaker finalist in 2005, 2009 and 2017.
TheSociety of Professional Journalists rankedThe State News among the nation's best college daily in 2014, and among the top three in 2007 and 2011.
Reporters often travel to cover news, especially to out-of-state sporting events, such as the 2009 presidential inauguration, the 2012 and 2016 Democratic and Republican national conventions, the 2014 Rose Bowl Game and 2019 men's Final Four. Clinics and professional development opportunities are provided. A staffphotographer at the paper has been named Michigan's College Photographer of the Year by the Michigan Press Photographers' Association each year for most of the last decade.
Alumni also have wonPulitzer Prizes, including M.L. Elrick who was part of theDetroit Free Press staff that won the journalism award in April 2009 for their coverage of the texting message scandal ofDetroit MayorKwame Kilpatrick. Elrick wrote for theState News in 1987-88. Jim Mitzelfeld won in 1994 for beat reporting atThe Detroit News, 11 years after serving as editor-in-chief.
Investigative work by Charles Robinson at Yahoo! Sports led to the revocation of USC football player Reggie Bush's 2005 Heisman Trophy. Robinson later uncovered millions of dollars in illegal compensation to several dozen football players at the University of Miami (Fla.).
Other recent alums of note include Jemele Hill, former co-host of "SportsCenter" on ESPN who now writes for The Atlantic; Steve Eder, a presidential campaign reporter for The New York Times; and John Hudson, who covers national security for the Washington Post.
The State News has a readership of more than 65,000 students, faculty, staff and residents of the cities surrounding the university. Free copies of the paper are availableonline or at green-colored newsstands aroundcampus and the city.The State News prints 7,000 copies of the paper every other Tuesday during theFall and Spring semesters. The print edition is not published onweekends,holidays, the summer semester or semester breaks, though news is constantly updated at statenews.com (which has garnered more than 5 million page views annually) and via social media (the State News' Twitter feeds have more than 40,000 followers). In 2012,The State News began marketing its Gryphon content management system to other college newspapers under the moniker of SNworks (www.getsnworks.com). Gryphon's successor CMS, called CEO, is now being used by more than 50 student-run papers at North Carolina, Duke, Maryland, Indiana, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, South Carolina, New Mexico, Eastern Michigan, Grand Valley State, UM-Flint, Otterbein and other universities, in addition toThe State News itself.
In 2006, the State News Alumni Association honored the first 15 inductees to its State News Hall of Fame. 31 additional names have been added through 2009.[8] The first class included:
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