As part of the changes coming to the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP), the provincial government has created the Student Choice Initiative.
This will allow students to opt out of paying non-essential ancillary fees.
These fees cover health plans, peer support, clubs, and campus media outlets.
With potential changes to funding, campus newsrooms across the province are surrounded by uncertainty.
Training journalists
Many argue that campus media is solely useful to studets who want to become journalists.
Edited draft of an edition of Interrobang
However, Jeremy Copeland, journalism lecturer at Western University, says campus media is more than just an institution that allows for people to launch their careers
“Its not just for the people who want to be journalists. It’s for students who want to get their voice heard through an opinion letter or through letting other students know what’s going on with their club or residence,” he said.
“Campus media allows students to get those issues put on a table where people will see them,” he added.
The importance of campus media.
Campus media plays an integral role in making sure people and institutions are held accountable.
Angela McInnes, staff reporter of Interrobang, says this is vital for a democratic process.
“More than ever, in this era of fake news and alternative facts, it’s so important to have a designated media outlet that has taken it upon themselves to hold power to account, especially in an institution where there’s thousands of people’s dollars involved,” she added.
Michael Conley is the editor-in-chief of The Western Gazette. He says campus media provides students with an essential service by having access to the university campus.
Conley says this was evident during their coverage of the faculty strike this past November.
“No one at all had the opportunity to cover that in the way that we did…We informed the campus community as well as the national community. Anyone who was involved and was paying attention to what was happening at Western was surely paying attention to what we were doing because we had that access,” he said.
“We were able to tell our story in a time of uncertainty and that was a service no one else could’ve provided,” he added.
For Melissa Novacaska, editor at Interrobang, campus media allows journalists to report on stories that affect students’ day-to-day lives.
“Large newspapers can’t always cover local student issues. Without campus papers, students won’t know about the issues that affect them. They also won’t get to hear the stories of our diverse students,” she added.
Uncertain future
With little information on the mechanics of the Student Choice Initiative or on how post-secondary institutions will allocate their resources, the future of campus media remains questionable.
Jeremy Copeland, journalism lecturer at Western University, says if not enough students pay the fees that allow campus media to operate, there would be tremendous consequences.
“If you lose [campus media], you lose a voice for the students and how you fill that hole, I don’t know. I guess people can blog, but they will not have the audience that you get by being The Gazette, or by being [Interrobang],” he said.
“If you lose that, it would really cut at the cohesion and sense of community at this university,” he added.
