Media giant Gannett Company, Inc.’s recent interest in setting up a partnership between a student newspaper and a Gannett-owned professional paper in Colorado ultimately fell flat, but the industry practice does have precedent.
Gannett approached Colorado State University’s student-run, nonprofit Rocky Mountain Collegian and the Fort Collins Coloradoan in a late February meeting to discuss the possible partnership.
“We had one conversation with the university out there,” said Gannett spokeswoman Tara Connell. “They said it’s not for us, the paper isn’t for sale. End of story.”
Though most college newspapers are nonprofit, Gannett has purchased two for-profit Florida college papers.
“We don’t own any nonprofit operations,” Connell said. “There’s a business to be run.”
Connell also said Gannett allows editorial autonomy for all the papers it owns.
“What we intended to do was to pretty much let the [student newspapers] run themselves, but we were also going to help mentor the student [advertising] people,” Connell said.
CSU Campus Life Executive Director Anne Hudgens confirmed that the Collegian had not received any formal proposals from Gannett, but said that the paper’s advisory committee was looking into different student newspaper business models around the country.
“We’re in the process of taking a look at what would be in the best interest of the newspaper, and of course we’re interested in maintaining academic integrity and journalistic integrity,” she said.
Gannett first dipped into the college newspaper world when the Gannett-owned Tallahassee Democrat purchased Florida State University’s FSView and Florida Flambeau in 2006. Last year, Gannett also acquired the University of Central Florida’s The Central Florida Future, which Knight Publishing previously owned.
FSU sophomore Zachary O’Connell said the FSView- and Florida Flambeau-Gannett partnerships do not change his opinion of the publications, and said any editorial bias reflects the college newspaper staff, not a corporate publisher.
“To me, they write a newspaper about college students, for college students,” he said. “Unless you care about what’s going on around campus, you’re not going to care about what the FSView has to say.”