The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/journalism/page/4/)
Well, one more semester has come and gone. Cornellians have left campus for what seems like an ever-shortening winter break, bringing a snowy emptiness over East Hill. It’s been an eventful semester here at Cornell — between the introduction of a new financial aid policy, the opening of the new Weill Hall and President David Skorton’s visit to Iran to meet with education leaders.
Over the past couple of days, my mind has not been on gay marriage; it has been on an operating systems project. But even with my reclusive studying habits this week, I still have caught wind off the recent controversy over the latest Newsweek cover story by Lisa Miller, which alleges that the Bible actually supports gay marriage.
Now I acknowledge that Newsweek has the right to print whatever it wants, but that right has never been conditioned on the quality of what they write, a fact which has become manifestly evident when I read the cover story.
Hear about Sun Senior Editor Molly OToole’s ride with the CUPD and what else The Sun is doing with its new investigative report unit.
News Editor Ben Eisen’s ’10 recent post on the survival of print journalism in The Sun’s From the Editors blog represents a huge concern flowing through the newspaper industry right now: can print survive alongside web based news.
Anyone who’s followed the media industry in the slightest knows that print journalism isn’t what it once was. With the internet making news so much easier to obtain, print editions are getting slimmed down, reporters are getting laid off and editors are quitting. Plus, the advent of blogging — which some consider grass-roots journalism while others call it the downfall of legitimate news — means that regular people are breaking news as opposed to institutionalized media outlets. Lastly, print advertising is down because websites like Craigslist cut down on the need to post ads in a newspaper. So, the world is scrambling to find the next big thing that will save the newspaper business, but no one really knows what it is yet. That’s my take anyway.
When Cornell was founded in 1865, Ezra Cornell stated that “[He] would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study.” This quotation, which became Cornell’s motto, may not hold completely true, since the University fails to provide many majors, including a journalism program.
Scott Conroe MPS ’98, who taught science writing and magazine journalism at Cornell for seven years, summarized the history of Cornell’s journalism program since he came to C.U. in 1996.