{"id":15469,"date":"2020-02-25T16:39:04","date_gmt":"2020-02-26T00:39:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/?p=15469"},"modified":"2020-02-25T16:39:04","modified_gmt":"2020-02-26T00:39:04","slug":"guest-opinion-wounews-is-still-not-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/guest-opinion-wounews-is-still-not-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Guest opinion: WOUnews is still not news"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stephanie Blair\u00a0<\/strong> | Western Oregon University Class of 2018<\/span><\/p>\n

I recently received word from a current student that Western\u2019s Marketing and Communications (MarCom) department has just launched \u201cToday at WOU\u201d and included in the subject line of this all-student email blast the words, \u201cyour news source.\u201d It reminded me that the more things change, the more they stay the same. It\u2019s an old adage, but it rings true on Western\u2019s historic campus.<\/span><\/p>\n

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 \u201cNewsflash: WOUnews is no news\u201d which criticized Western Oregon\u2019s Marketing and Communications (MarCom) department for peddling a publicity blog for the school as a news source for students.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u2019s bottom line.<\/span><\/p>\n

After that editorial was run, I had stirred the pot. The MarCom representative on our oversight board stepped down \u2014 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

But now, as a professional journalist who got her start in Western\u2019s Student Media program, I would like to say again: public relations is not news, it\u2019s propaganda.<\/span><\/p>\n

The students who staff The Western Howl are accountable to journalistic ethics and their fellow students \u2014 they write about anything and everything that matters to the student body with no agenda but practicing the craft and bringing information to Western\u2019s tuition-payers. MarCom\u2019s job is to bring in money to the institution and increase enrollment \u2014 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 \u2014 for better or worse.<\/span><\/p>\n

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 \u2014 this is far from the first time something like this has happened.<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stephanie Blair\u00a0 | Western Oregon University Class of 2018 I recently received word from a current student that Western\u2019s Marketing and Communications (MarCom) department has just launched \u201cToday at WOU\u201d and included in the subject line of this all-student email blast the words, \u201cyour news source.\u201d It reminded me that the more things change, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1094,"featured_media":10024,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"modified_by":"The Western Howl","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1094"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}