Best Newspaper
Public Colleges & Universities

Winner: The Future, University of Central Florida
Runner-Up: The Alligator, University of Florida
Honorable Mention: The Oracle, Univ. of South Florida

Winner
The Future—University of Central Florida
Just like the players on a football team, each staff member at a newspaper has an integral role that helps mold every issue into a cohesive unit. The University of Central Florida’s team could learn a few things from the school’s independent student newspaper, The Central Florida Future. Admit it—with a 3-9 record, the football team needs a lot of help. So, listen up, all you gridiron Golden Knights, as we examine a few pages from the Future’s winning playbook.

1. Improvement is essential. You don’t have to win the championship the first year, but you DO need to improve each year. Five years ago, the Future hardly could be considered a newspaper. They published more wire stories than student-written stories, the design was horrid, and more importantly, students didn’t read it. After an ownership change, the Future started down the road toward rehabilitation, but what’s so surprising is how fast they recovered from what looked like a career-ending injury. In 2003, all the Future’s years of dedication to improvement paid off when they earned their first Pacemaker, considered the Pulitzer Prize of college journalism. “The Pacemaker ranks the Future as one of the best campus newspapers in the country,” says Heissam Jebailey, co-publisher. “That high honor validates our editorial approach, which is to produce a paper that invites readers to participate and make a difference in their community.”

2. Bigger is better. No matter what you’ve heard, size does matter. This maxim remains true whether you’re talking about linesmen or newspapers, and the Future increased its offensive brawn significantly this year when it switched from the smaller non-standard broadsheet to the full-sized version. With the upsizing came several subtle yet crucial design changes, the most significant of which was the nameplate redesign. The new front page is both elegant and captivating, keeping things simple and clean. As a whole, the new look is a tremendous improvement over an already well-designed paper. “We hear over and over from the UCF community how much more credible the paper is because of the new size and design,” says Brian Linden, co-publisher.

3. Execution is key. If you don’t have the fundamentals down, going to a larger format just gives you more space to screw up. But for the last couple of years, the Future has been one of the best statewide at packaging stories in creative layouts. Every issue contains layouts that grab your attention, and they’re not restricted to just the Lifestyles section. In addition to continuing its already superb design, the Future improved upon last year’s greatest weakness—content. In the past, the Future was mostly glitz-and-glam, leaving you to believe that Steve Spurrier with his fun-and-gun offense had gone into newspaper publishing. But in 2003, UCF’s paper added grit to their showy packaging, creating a one-two punch that’s rolled over the competition. “The paper holds a day of workshops every fall semester to offer writers tips on improving leads, story flow, and reporting,” says Alex Babcock, managing editor. “We also routinely select stories to work closely with writers on, to ensure they’re talking to the right sources, asking the right questions, and compiling their notes into a tight, cohesive story.”

4. Complacency is disastrous. The Future may be the best student newspaper in the state, but even the best papers can still get better. Good papers report the news; great papers uncover the news and create change. If the Future wants to win a Pacemaker in 2004, they could use a solid influx of investigative reporting, which doesn’t just mean digging up dirt. Test the system and see what happens, uncover an unknown local hero, localize a national story, and always keep in mind that you’re there to improve the students’ lives.

Runner-up
The Alligator—University of Florida
If the current incarnation of the University of Florida’s Independent Florida Alligator isn’t a sign of the end times, then we don’t know what is. The state’s most consistently drab-looking newspaper got a much needed facelift after decades of looking exactly the same. The subtle differences—including body copy and headline font changes, the addition of teasers for the News and Sports sections, and more professional-looking graphics—have given the paper new life. “The paper has changed its look to be more user-friendly,” says Steven Erickson, managing editor of new media. “We’ve included a lot more information that the reader can get at a glance.”

Aside from the exterior changes, the Alligator remains the same at its core. It’s still the best student news-gathering publication statewide. Covering everything from campus to national news, UF’s sole student newspaper continues to be untouchable when it comes to quality reporting. The Opinions section still causes controversy, but according to former Editor Joe Black, controversy is what an editorial page is all about. “The fact that the Alligator stirs debate and garners such response from the community at large and that people dedicate so much time either writing for or writing to the paper shows that it does make a difference with the student body,” he says. Even the paper’s biggest weakness, Detours, remains its biggest weakness. But at least Detours accomplishes what it aims to do—be the antithesis to the Alligator’s highly touted professionalism. Anyone who’s read the weekly arts and entertainment section knows that it’s anything but professional.

Honorable Mention
The Oracle—University of South Florida
It’s unfortunate that the “Best of Florida Schools” newspaper competition happens only once a year because The University of South Florida’s The Oracle deserves as much recognition as any other student newspaper in the state. For years now, they’ve quietly produced a solid newspaper, and this year is no exception. With a bold new approach to design, The Oracle has never looked better. More importantly, they’ve shown a commitment to quality in-depth reporting. However, it’s the combination of the two elements—content and design—that gives The Oracle its winning formula. “Design isn’t secondary to content; it should be treated as equal,” says Ryan Meehan, editor in chief. “What worth does content have if readers find the presentation boring?”

Currently, The Oracle’s major weakness is its Sports section. Although the writing is adequate, the section itself, which is often only one page, should be expanded. Unfortunately, The Oracle hasn’t shown the same kind of commitment to in-depth reporting in the Sports section as they’ve shown in News.