Why The West Georgian Still Matters

by Dr. John Ike Sewell

A couple of weeks ago I was faced with a baffling circumstance while giving a lecture in my Intro to Mass Media class. I asked my students what kind of content they saw when they accessed newspapers online. My hoped-for reply was that they saw several kinds of content—not just text. Instead, my question was met with blank stares, puzzled looks and, finally, the ugly truth. “We don’t look at newspapers.”

While I wasn’t exactly blown away by this response, I did take pause. After all, I had 49 students in the class. Surely someone looked at newspapers?

Simply put, the newspaper medium is dying. Newspapers are regularly laying off writers, transitioning to online-only formats, or just going belly-up. Young people, especially, don’t read newspapers.

This ugly truth leads me to ponder some existential questions. OK, I’m an assistant professor of convergence journalism. I am the advisor for The West Georgian newspaper. In other words, I’m the newspaper guy at UWG. So, if print journalism is dying and young people aren’t reading newspapers, then what is my raison d’etre? And furthermore, what is the worth of producing a student newspaper here at the university?

My answer to this awful, daunting question is tripartite.

1. Print journalism might be dying, but journalism itself is not dying. Newswriting is thriving online, thank you.
2. Writing is an essential skill for anyone in mass communications.
3. Students who write for The West Georgian gain essential job skills. They work together—pushing an idea from conception to completion. They learn to produce content on a deadline. And, with this experience, they are much more likely to get jobs.
   

I’m especially proud of point #3. In the five semesters I’ve served as advisor, every one (that’s 100 percent, by golly) of the graduating Mass Communications majors who have served on The West Georgian’s staff have found viable, interesting, challenging jobs in the discipline—for grownup salaries, no less. I’m not bragging—or maybe I am.

For some crazy reason, the experience of writing for the student newspaper seems to serve as a selling-point for UWG Mass Communication graduates. This, of course, is a testament to the graduating staff members’ skill and determination, not to my role as advisor per se. Anyway, I’m convinced that The West Georgian still matters. And that’s validation enough.

Dr. John Ike Sewell is an assistant professor of convergence journalism in the UWG Department of Mass Communications.