Stephanie Blair  | Western Oregon University Class of 2018

I recently received word from a current student that Western’s Marketing and Communications (MarCom) department has just launched “Today at WOU” and included in the subject line of this all-student email blast the words, “your news source.” It reminded me that the more things change, the more they stay the same. It’s an old adage, but it rings true on Western’s historic campus.

In October 2017, I was a senior attending Western and was serving as the editor-in-chief of what is now known as The Western Howl. That month I wrote an editorial titled “Newsflash: WOUnews is no news” which criticized Western Oregon’s Marketing and Communications (MarCom) department for peddling a publicity blog for the school as a news source for students. 

I was frustrated, having worked for our independent student newspaper for all four years of my college career. I was proud of the work my staff was doing, the impact we were having and the awards we were bringing to Western but MarCom was making continual efforts to overshadow us for the sake of the university’s bottom line.

After that editorial was run, I had stirred the pot. The MarCom representative on our oversight board stepped down — though only to be replaced by another from that department. I was treated differently by some staff and many students who wrote for that blog. And, in hindsight, I can understand their perspective. Who was I to criticize them? They knew little to nothing about me, about the career I was building for myself.

But now, as a professional journalist who got her start in Western’s Student Media program, I would like to say again: public relations is not news, it’s propaganda.

The students who staff The Western Howl are accountable to journalistic ethics and their fellow students — they write about anything and everything that matters to the student body with no agenda but practicing the craft and bringing information to Western’s tuition-payers. MarCom’s job is to bring in money to the institution and increase enrollment — which also brings in all of that tuition. I would ask the students of Western to please consider which one of these is more likely to address problematic behavior by the administration, give a voice to students who are looked over by that same administration and most accurately represent Western to the world — for better or worse.

I am disappointed to see not only the disregard that MarCom has for the Howl, but its active efforts in replacing it with a sanitized money-grab. However, after all this time, I am still not surprised. This independent, student-run newspaper has been in existence for nearly a century — this is far from the first time something like this has happened.

It is up to the students to decide who they trust: their peers or the institution. I know who I will bet on every time.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in guest opinions are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Western Howl.