Best Newspaper (Public Universities)

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Best Newspaper (Public Universities)
     Maybe it’s time for another recount. This is, after all, Florida. Some campus papers may be feeling disenfranchised by The Oracle at the University of South Florida and The Independent Florida Alligator serving the University of Florida. These powerful dailies have won a clear mandate again—but they didn’t earn a hollow hanging-chad victory. The Oracle and The Alligator continue to rank among the top student publications in America.
     The Beacon, a weekly at the Florida International University, picked up a few votes in the Supreme Court-ordered recount, but The Beacon is like the Green Party, while The Oracle and The Alligator are the Democrats (no Republicans here, as both editors admit to liberal tendencies). And The Gator Times and FSView, independent papers that serve UF and FSU respectively, tallied enough write-in votes to make their inaugural appearance in the "Best of" awards.
     This year, The Oracle wins Florida Leader’s popular vote because of its innovative projects, "participatory journalism," and outreach to recruit more writers and readers. "We’ve done more new things than ever before," says Lucas Grindley, editor in chief.
     Oracle Advisor Jay Lawrence says the current incarnation stands out for its coverage of racial discrimination allegations against the women’s basketball coach, who eventually was fired. "Once the story broke in August, Oracle coverage kept pace with The Tampa Tribune and St. Petersburg Times," Lawrence says.
     "This willingness to go the extra mile literally and figuratively to get a story also has been impressive," Lawrence says. "The editor and managing editor provided daily courthouse coverage in December when the man accused of DUI manslaughter in the deaths of three USF students went on trial."
     SG President Tyvi Small says he used to pick up The Oracle expecting to be blasted and to get ready for "damage control." But this year, the paper treats his administration in an even-handed manner. "Our relationship is a thousand-times better," he says. "It’s their style and approach—it’s not what you say, but how. They actually cover the good things about SG, as well as stuff like senate bickering. The articles are more relevant to USF and students. This year, when you pick it up, you look for positive things."
     Even though he’s only been on campus since January 2000, Guy Conway says the paper has been reasonable. "Even if they’re giving me coverage on something that wasn’t positive," says Conway, director of USF’s Marshall Center, "they’ve been professional and have given us fair and accurate coverage. It’s a high-quality publication."
     The Oracle expanded its opinion section to two pages last fall, Grindley says, hoping to encourage more reader interaction. "The most recent example of this freedom is a column that criticized women, saying a woman would make a poor president because she would be too emotional to handle the criticism," he says. "Afterward, we printed about one week’s worth of responses. More than one person said the column was the topic of class discussion."
     Grindley’s team made a concerted effort to make stories more about "people and less about issues and numbers crunching. And we’ve done this with everything from the AIDS story to one about the marching band’s sophomore year," Grindley says. "Assistant News Editor Ann Norsworthy dusted off her old flute and joined the marching band for two weeks. She practiced, learned the music and most of the steps, and then performed with the band. She then explained the state of the band’s second year."
     Grindley sent staffers on other similar assignments, hoping to reveal a more personal angle. "Both Ann and Doug competed for Homecoming King and Queen to explain the changes in the nomination process," he says. "A team of five Oracle women auditioned for the Super Bowl halftime show to explain the process and how tough it is to be accepted."
     But Grindley says The Oracle’s this year’s greatest step—and risk--was launching a new student magazine, Static. From a financial standpoint, Grindley admits the magazine didn’t make money. "I had to do some convincing," he says. "We think it will pay for itself down the line, but we needed to do the first one to get the advertisers interested.
     "This publication has made the greatest impact on our readers," he says. "Aisha Abram wrote about growing up in poverty and the trauma of becoming homeless after a fire destroyed her family’s home and possessions. And I discussed the coming-out process and how I first told people I’m gay. I have never gotten such heart-felt response from an article. People have written me telling me they were once suicidal during the coming-out process and my article was an inspiration."
     Armed with a $850,000 budget, with $170,000 coming from SG coffers, 30 editors and staffers produce 15,000 copies daily. "SG funds are becoming a smaller percentage of our budget every year because we never ask for more," Grindley says.
     The Oracle staff is relatively small (20 to 25 newsroom staffers) in comparison with other dailies in the South, Lawrence says. "But in addition to the normal extra supplements, the staff this year produced a 12-page election preview and 16-page Super Bowl section, both of which focused on USF-related stories," he says.
     Grindley says he’s added about 10 more staffers and editors to the team. "This has relieved the heavy burden that used to burn out many of our editors. We did this by splitting jobs in half and hiring two people to do the job one person was asked to do," he says.
     "It’s been a progression of improvement," he says. "The changes we’ve made have been gradual. At no point did anybody say ‘Wow, they just changed it.’ Now it’s one cohesive product.
     "Despite the odds, our paper reaches a high standard that competes with the best of the best in the nation," Grindley says. "It’s scary to think what we could do with more resources. Our team does the work of 10 people each."
     For those who might argue that The Alligator should occupy Florida Leader’s top spot, Grindley asks a question. "Which paper would you rather pick up? The Alligator is a great paper, but if you look at us side by side, one looks better and it’s ours," Grindley says. "We’re not perfect, but we’re better than they are."
Contact The Oracle at editor@usfmail.com or www.usforacle.com.

Runner-up

     As one of only two Florida campus dailies, The Alligator, manned by 11 editors and 50 staffers, publishes 35,000 copies. The Alligator operates financially and editorially separate from the university and gets no portion of its multi-million dollar budget from student fees—aside from paid advertising that some campus groups and offices buy throughout the year.
     Editor Jason Brown says he’s proud of the paper’s "Star gazing" article in October 2000 about UF astronomers’ attempts to share an international telescope. But his team couldn’t pick a single article as the year’s most influential. "Instead, we chose our coverage of the 2000 presidential campaign, from primaries to the inauguration," he says.
     Historically, The Alligator has served admirably as a necessary watchdog for UF’s Student Government, a vital role Brown says continues. "There’s a grudging respect, but there’s no love lost," he says. "Most of that has to do with our opinion section’s proclivity to tell the truth."
     Brown readily admits that the paper leans toward the left, a constant refrain of disgruntled letter-writers. "The Alligator is still considered liberal, which is probably well earned," he says. "Our editorial board certainly has liberal tendencies."
     Brown almost recoils from the term "student journalists." "We’re just journalists, and we have made it our business to do what professional newspapers do," he says. "We have expanded our coverage from just university matters and have traveled throughout the state and country to cover the 2000 presidential election contest, Florida’s educational reorganization, and UF sports."
     Brown has tweaked The Alligator’s successful format slightly, enhancing the well-read and powerful paper. "This semester, we brought back the tradition of running feature stories every Monday, including an extensive travel section on the last Friday of every month, featuring a double-truck full of features and graphics," Brown says.
     "Right now, The Alligator is as strong, if not stronger, than it has ever been," Brown says. "We treat the news with the same level of professionalism as ‘real’ newspapers."
Contact The Alligator at letters@alligator.org or www.alligator.org

Honorable Mention

     At Florida International University, Editor in Chief Alex Segura is most proud of the weekly Beacon’s complete redesign. "We have become a broadsheet, three sections, and four-color," he says. "We’ve expanded coverage to the university’s other campus, the Biscayne Bay campus. The paper has clearly gone beyond any previous incarnation."
     As far as article impact, Segura says his editorial on Student Government Association practices during their meetings has been The Beacon’s biggest achievement. "We criticized their ineffective nature and lack of protocol," he says. "This created a stir among SGA and also led to an investigation of the inner workings of SGA."
     Segura says The Beacon will soon be joining the ranks of papers that are published more often. "We’ve reached our capacity for a weekly," he says. Contact The Beacon at beacon@fiu.edu.
     In Gainesville and Tallahassee, Publishers Blaise Provitola and Robert Parker produce two publications that provide an alternative voice. The fact that their papers are still alive is in itself a remarkable feat. In both towns, Florida Leader over the past 18 years has seen dozens of would-be competitors fall by the wayside.
     In Tallahassee, Nearly 10 years after most people said it could never be done, Provitola says FSView has become FSU’s student publication after vanquishing, then absorbing, its formal rival, the formerly powerful daily Florida Flambeau. "The Flam got too far away from what students wanted to read about," he says. "They started covering obscure national news—but students want to read about what’s happening on campus."
     Provitola’s company later bought the rights to the Flam moniker and considerable archives. "Having our name combined has solidified our place in FSU history," he says.
     To the south in Gainesville, Parker and Provitola’s Orange & Blue Newspaper, debuted in 2000 as a bi-weekly full of fraternity and sorority party photos, calendars of upcoming social activities, and some feature reporting. Not long after the launch, Provitola discovered that UF’s student magazine also uses the Orange & Blue moniker, so he changed the paper’s name to The Gator Times. "You know right off the bat that it’s a UF student newspaper," he says.
     While The Gator Times has attracted a sizable stable of advertisers and an easy-to-read design, the paper still badly trails The Alligator in terms of quality news reporting and timeliness.
Contact Provitola at sales@fsview.com.

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