Editor’s note: Dr. Len O’Kelly is the director of the School of Communications, and the opinions expressed in this piece are his own.
I experienced a bit of “déjà vu” a few days ago when a Facebook memory appeared in my feed. The April 2016 post was about a letter to the Lanthorn I had written, titled “Making the case for student media funding.” The letter was written 10 years ago. Two or three generations of students have turned over here at Grand Valley State University since then, and here I am, once again, making the case for student media funding.
The editorial board of the Lanthorn recently stated in their excellent editorial from March 2 that the model for funding our student media at GVSU needs to change. I agree. About two years ago, the three student-operated media at GVSU – the Lanthorn, WCKS student radio, and GVTV student television – shifted financial oversight from the Office of Student Life to the School of Communications. This was done in part to protect the editorial independence of the media in issues of reportage regarding stories that involve the University itself, student government, etc. The prior funding model was dependent on Student Senate allocation; it is difficult to be truly objective when reporting on the very governing body that pays for your ink, and I believe this move has benefited the University community. However, what it also did was “lock in” the financial allocation for all three media outlets each year without additional senate support.
The March 2 editorial correctly suggested that the allocations for student media have not changed since at least 2018. The Lanthorn receives a flat fee of $72,000 per year, all of which goes solely into paying for printing the physical copies of the newspaper that readers enjoy. Any student wages paid come from advertising business, which itself is dependent on a print product for some of the larger advertisers, like apartment complexes. These are the same student wages that the state has rightfully increased over time, but the money to cover wages has not been provided. This means fewer reporters, which means fewer stories.
Over the past 10 years, the Lanthorn has had to adjust its print frequency, from twice a week to once a week, and now, every other week. Why? Printing costs have increased, through tariffs and inflation, but printing budgets have not. Radio and television operate their services to the campus community on fixed amounts of roughly $10,000 per year each, with no opportunity to compensate students as licensing fees and equipment costs eat up most of this budget.
“Student media is integral to the JBM (Journalism, Broadcasting, and Digital Media) program,” the editorial stated, “and if the Lanthorn isn’t thriving, the JBM program falters.” I would not only endorse this statement, but I would also add student radio and television to the equation. The JBM program is one of the fastest-growing programs at GVSU right now, based on admissions information. We are teaching television courses in a space designated as “temporary” – in 1982, when I was finishing middle school. The experiential learning for radio courses is held in a former faculty office with a microphone stuck in it, with room for one student at a time to work.
The JBM program is dependent on a strong student media program being present at the University, given our space and technology limitations. Strong student media win awards, as ours do, which helps them to recruit students to their programs. The students who seek out GVSU to enroll in JBM courses and contribute to campus media also take full schedules of general education courses, live in campus housing, eat campus dining, attend athletic events, pay for parking, and so on. It is the work of students in student media that brings GVSU recognition in these competitions. In other words, the strength of academics feeds the strength of the extracurriculars, which in turn feed the strength of academics, and so on and so forth.
The Lanthorn Editorial Board proposed a modest per-student funding model in line with what our other counterparts in the state are doing. Five dollars per student per semester – about a cup of coffee per term – would effectively double the available resources for student media at GVSU and would still make it one of the best values that students receive. The University, in turn, would see a grand return on the investment in the form of eager media students investing in their education and ideally becoming proud alumni who invest back in the University through philanthropic efforts.
I am glad that the Lanthorn’s editorial staff has taken up this cause, and urge both my colleagues and our student community to sign the petition for the funding model. It is my hope that I am not writing this sort of appeal once again in another 10 years.
