At the Vanguard, we’ve been discussing whether to keep our (expensive) access to the Associated Press database. We prefer to think of those articles as emergency space fillers, in case one of our student-written articles falls through, and our editor-in-chief is pretty committed to keeping syndicated content off our pages.
I think it’s smart to put so much emphasis on student-produced content, and I think everyone on staff here is happy to shoulder the extra work that makes a fully student-produced paper a reality.
Unfortunately, not all news organizations have the manpower to keep their paper their own.
I read the paper edition of the Oregonian, and I’ve been noticing that a lot of its content is syndicated. Today, for example: only four articles in the front section were written by Oregonian reporters. The Metro section also had just four original articles, one of which was a PolitiFact column.
I’m glad that we’re tackling a problem so big, even an organization like the Oregonian seems to have given up on it.
