Daily Free Press
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| The Daily Free Press | |
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| Type | Daily newspaper |
| Format | Tabloid |
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| Owner | The Back Bay Publishing Co. |
| Publisher | Turley Publications, Inc. |
| Editor | Neal Simpson |
| Founded | {{{foundation}}} |
| Political allegiance | Neutral |
| Headquarters | Boston, MA, USA |
| Circulation | 4,000 Mon.-Wed. & Fri., 9,000 Thu.; Fourth largest in Boston foundation = 1970 |
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| Website: The Daily Free Press & f-Stop Online |
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The Daily Free Press, an independent student newspaper at Boston University, began its run as the largest continuing publication at BU in 1970. On May 1, two newspapers merged into The Daily Free Press at the same time students were responding to the Kent State riots with a violent protest. Final exams and graduation were cancelled, and The Daily Free Press captured the moment in its first issue.
Since then, The Daily Free Press (or, as it is commonly called, the FreeP) has published an issue every instructional day. It can be found in most instructional buildings and dormitories around the BU campus. As of January 2006, daily circulation was 9,000.
In its 35 years of publication, The Daily Free Press has won numerous awards for its reporting, including the Columbia Press Association's Gold Medal Award for Excellence. The Daily Free Press covers campus news, local (Boston-area) news, and campus sports, in addition to running editorials, columns, and letters each day. In January 1980, the Arts and Entertainment coverage blossomed into The Muse, the FreeP's weekly A&E publication. Science Tuesday, the first collegiate weekly science section, began in the 1990s. Spotlight and InBusiness also provide students with a variety of interesting feature stories on Wednesdays and Fridays, respectively.
The editorial staff of the FreeP is strictly volunteer-based. All writers, photographers and business staffers are BU students. Members of the editorial board regularly put in 50-60 hours per week, in addition to their classes. The editorial staff changes every semester, with the new staff being selected by a board of former FreeP editors. Stylistic, editorial, and proofreading preference and ability shift with each new staff. Thus, some semesters are better than others.
Many alumni have gone on to careers in journalism, television and film, and a few have won the Pulitzer Prize.
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[edit] The Daily Free Press Online
Since January 1996, The Daily Free Press Online has been published at dailyfreepress.com every day that the print publication is distributed. The most recent online readership figures for the online edition are 28,000 weekly user sessions and 120,000 monthly page views.
On September 28th The Daily Free Press launched f-Stop Online, the paper's photographic journal. The journal is published every two weeks to show the best photography that has been published in the paper as well as photographer profiles and photo stories. f-Stop is run primarily by the photo editor but has oversight from the editor-in-chief. f-Stop was originally a printed monthly in The Daily Free Press early in the 1990's but was discontinued due to the high cost.
[edit] Notable Daily Free Press alumni
Many editors and writers of the Free Press have gone on to successful careers in the media. They include:
- Bill O'Reilly (commentator), television personality and journalist;
- Bruce Feirstein, an author, magazine writer and screenwriter;
- Don Van Natta, Jr., an author and member of The New York Times staff receiving the Pulitzer Prize in 1999 & 2002;
- Ian Fisher, the Rome correspondent at The New York Times;
- David Barboza, a Beijing-based correspondent at The New York Times;
- Joseph T. Hallinan, an author and 1991 Pulitzer Prize-winner for work done at the Indianapolis Star, currently Wall Street Journal reporter ;
- Andrew Cohen, a Denver-based lawyer and the CBS News legal affairs correspondent;
- Jeff Kline, an award-winning producer of children's TV programs;
- Kenneth Irby, a photographer;
- Ian Donnis, an editor and media critic at The Providence Phoenix;
- Matthew Horovitz, a television producer;
- Steve Gelsi, a reporter at CBSMarketWatch.
[edit] Significant Stories/Editorials in The Daily Free Press' History
Over the years, The Daily Free Press has at times drawn widespread attention for its coverage of and opinions about local issues.
The following is a list of some of the articles and editorials that, for brief moments, elevated The Daily Free Press to citywide, and sometimes national, attention:
- In 1991, The Daily Free Press opposed John Silber's candidacy for governor. Silber, on leave from his position as President of Boston University, was a dark horse primary winner and showed strong momentum in the campaign until its very last days.
- In 2004, The Daily Free Press covered the launching of Facebook.com before it became a national phenomenon.
- In 2004, The Daily Free Press reported from inside the State House as the Legislature debated a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
- In 2004, The Daily Free Press reported on the ground from Kenmore Square after the Red Sox won their first World Series in 86 years. The riots that followed led to citywide legislation imposing strict penalties on students who commit crimes off campus.
- In 2004, The Daily Free Press reported from the press gallery at John Kerry's election night campaign rally in Copley Square. The FreeP's earlier coverage of "Votergasm," a controversial voter registration drive in which participants pledged to abstain from sex with non-voters, was cited by Rush Limbaugh on his radio show.
- In 2005, when two BU students were struck and killed by an MBTA commuter rail train behind Boston University's West Campus, The Daily Free Press' coverage and editorial regarding the tragedy were spotlighted throughout the city and were cited by the Boston Globe and Harvard Crimson, among others.
- In 2005, The Boston Globe reported that because of an article in The Daily Free Press, mayoral candidate Maura Hennigan's campaign manager Mitch Kates's job was in question. Kates sparked controversy when he spoke at a meeting of the Boston University College Democrats and denounced mayor Thomas Menino, calling him "a drooling teddy bear" and hurling other such insults.
- In 2006, an editorial in The Daily Free Press was cited in the Metro for recommending that the MBTA increase fares even higher than initially proposed in order to significantly improve service.
[edit] Plagiarism in The Daily Free Press
On February 27, 2006, an Editor's Note on the editorial page in The Daily Free Press announced significant plagiarism by one staff member of four stories throughout late 2005 and early 2006 from sources including the Associated Press and The Washington Post. The paper also announced "significant administrative changes" to increase accountability and ensure that such plagiarism does not persist. Full Editor's Note
This was not the first time plagiarism has occurred in The Daily Free Press, although the editors have since instututed fact-checkers and more thorough oversight measures to prevent it from occurring in the future.
The writer of the plagiarized stories was released from the newspaper.
[edit] The dilemma of The Daily Free Press
As a student newspaper, The Daily Free Press is prone to a constantly changing editorial staff as its senior members graduate and leave the university. As a result, the quality of editing changes as the editorial board does. While, as a student paper, the FreeP is afforded more leeway for amateur mistakes, the paper cannot be judged by a single semester or a single editor because the next semester might bring an entirely different approach, for better or worse.
In addition, the FreeP affords the opportunity to write to any undergraduate student both in and out of the College of Communication, much to the chagrin of some of the editors. Thus, the editors are left to deal with students who sometimes have issues constructing basic sentences and don't know the fundamentals of journalism. And while the editors do try to teach these students as they go, inevitably, some stories will be of lesser quality than others.
As a daily newspaper, the FreeP editors themselves have limited time to devote to training inexperienced writers even while their call lists are inundated with them.
The dilemma for the editors is attempting to maintain respectability in the quality of writing while keeping the doors open for any and all university students that want to get involved.
