Centre Daily Times
Centre Daily Times Executive Editor Bob Heisse says the newspaper in State College, Pa., sold out of Monday's issue marking the death of former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno. The press run was 32,500 — compared to 18,000 on a typical day — so the newspaper has printed another 7,500 copies. (The paper is also selling posters of Monday's front page.) Its website exceeded 500,000 page views Monday, among the top few traffic days ever for the site — all of which have stemmed from news about the sexual abuse scandal at Penn State. "Our highest Web day was 880,000 page views on Nov. 9, the day Paterno announced his retirement and then was fired later in the night," Heisse tells me via email. "The next day topped 700,000. ... Today is soaring and we're about to start live video streaming of the Penn State Faculty Senate meeting." || Earlier: Penn State’s Daily Collegian worked through the night to publish special Paterno section | Pennsylvania’s front pages pay tribute to Joe Paterno

The Daily Collegian
In addition to the 16-page daily paper, Penn State's official student newspaper published a special 16-page commemorative edition today honoring former football coach Joe Paterno (front page below). Lexi Belculfine, editor-in-chief of The Daily Collegian, says by email:

We have a news staff of about 150 and business division of about 75. No less than half of both, I would estimate, helped bring together today's 32-page paper.

We worked at a breakneck speed. Many staffers spent the majority of Saturday at the office, when we first heard reports of the former coach's declining health. Sunday we worked from 9:30 a.m. or so -- when Joe Paterno's family announced his death -- until 2 a.m. Monday. It's still surreal. Twitter seems to indicate that there isn't a Collegian left on campus.

Copies went quickly, but more will be available Wednesday, the Collegian tweets. || Related: Pennsylvania’s front pages pay tribute to Joe Paterno | How AP’s ‘conditions for accuracy’ protected it from false Paterno, Giffords death reports | False Paterno death reports highlight journalists’ hunger for glory | One reason Paterno may have done interview with Washington Post's Sally Jenkins (more...)

Onward State, the student news site that incorrectly reported Joe Paterno's death Saturday night, has been cited as an example of the future of student media: a lean, social-media savvy news outlet dedicated to scooping the tradition-bound student newspaper.

A January 2010 Chronicle of Higher Education story described the competition between Onward State, founded in November 2008, and The Daily Collegian, Penn State's longstanding independent student newspaper:

On this particular Friday in mid-December, [site founder Davis Shaver] savors another coup. The morning edition of the paper, The Daily Collegian, reports on a forthcoming "rave" party in the student center -- a story that developed from a blog item Onward State ran four days earlier. Mr. Shaver and Chase Tralka, a fellow blogger, are still laughing about the uproar. "They just kind of steal our stuff," Mr. Tralka says with a shrug.

Marc Parry wrote that Onward State was at the vanguard of student media, sites that "seem to enjoy smashing some sacred journalism traditions, quaint rituals like editing, striving for objectivity, and verifying rumors before publication." (more...)

The Daily Reflector | MSNBC
The National Press Photographers Association is hoping to persuade East Carolina University to rehire a student adviser who was fired after a streaker photo appeared in the student newspaper. NPPA President Sean Elliot sent ECU's chancellor a letter Tuesday expressing the organization's concern. Paul Isom was fired earlier this month; Isom believes his dismissal was retaliation for protecting the students' right to publish without prior restraint. ECU issued a statement Tuesday that said the firing was not related to the photo or any First Amendment issues. The statement from Vice Chancellor Virginia Hardy reads, in part:

East Carolina University is concerned that a decision to change leadership in its director of student media role has been connected to a First Amendment issue without full knowledge of the facts at hand. It is important to distinguish between any personnel matter and the First Amendment.

We ask all advocacy groups and the public to trust our internal process, which has been deliberate, correct and legal, as we move forward to address these two separate issues.

The First Amendment demands public universities provide student journalists the opportunity to make their own news decisions and learn from them without interference. ECU puts that principle first. It has upheld it, especially in this instance.

(more...)

WNCT | WCTI | WITN | McClatchy
East Carolina University journalism professor Cindy Elmore is standing by her former colleague, Paul Isom, who was fired this week after serving as an adviser for three years to the student newspaper. “Being a personnel decision, I don't know everything that went into it," Elmore told WNCT, "but it certainly seems aimed at intimidation, punishment over the streaker photos and maybe other things that have been in the student newspaper." The photos of a man streaking at a Pirates football game were published in November by the East Carolinian, and at the time, Isom said ECU Vice Chancellor Virginia Hardy told him to remove the photos from the paper's website.

"I told her as politely as I could that if we do that, this will go from a controversy that will die down in a couple of days to a slam-dunk First Amendment issue that the university will lose and will go on for years," Isom said. "Then she backed down."

The problem, according to lawyers, is that college advisers cannot exercise prior review in a way that violates the students' rights, and yet Isom believes that's what he was expected to do to prevent the photos from being published. Isom told The Daily Reflector: (more...)

The Blade
The student newspaper at Sylvania Northview High School near Toledo published an opinion package called "A deeper look into homosexuality," with five columns stating varying views on homosexuality and a poll. Principal Steve Swaggerty tells The Blade's Nolan Rosenkrans that the story upset many at the school and could make some students feel unsafe. "Though Mr. Swaggerty did not believe any students will be disciplined for the article, he said there will be repercussions. 'A deeper look into homosexuality' will not be included with the rest of the edition when posted online." The school is also reviewing its "hands-off approach" to the student paper.

The Blade praised the student journalists in an editorial: "Nothing shocking or incendiary in any of this, unless you're a parent or a school administrator who'd rather stick your head in the sand than to admit that sex -- gay and straight -- may be the most important but least openly discussed topic in high school."

Poynter.org
“We were getting flooded with calls,” Collegiate Times Editor-in-Chief Zach Crizer tells Poynter's Mallary Tenore. “We told them our policy is to not give interviews to other media outlets during breaking news because we want all of our people to write for us. The New York Times offered the opportunity to contribute to a story (instead of interviewing us), so we got quotes for them and did some reporting.” In the end, some of the students did interviews with other news outlets. || Related: Newspaper's Twitter account grew from 2,000 to 18,000 in hours (The New York Times)