Ed Stamper has resigned from the board of the University of Georgia's student newspaper, The Red & Black, following a dispute about the paper's independence. At a meeting Thursday, student journalists had called for his resignation.

Stamper had written a now-famous memo about the paper's future. In his apology, which was read at a meeting Friday and which Poynter obtained a copy of, he said:

I sincerely apologize for all the embarrassment these documents have caused. I am also terribly saddened by the resulting misunderstanding and [its] impact on The Red and Black and its loyal, talented staff members. It is personally embarrassing to have the public see a document to I gave little thought and so carelessly worded.

The board, which is independent from the university, also apologized and promised the students editorial autonomy:

The student editor has always had the final editorial decision responsibility for our news content. That is still the case. The professional staff who work on the editorial side of this newspaper are intended to be coaches and advisers only.

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Student journalists who walked out from the newsroom of the University of Georgia's independent student newspaper the Red & Black on Wednesday returned for an off-the-record meeting Thursday afternoon with publisher Harry Montevideo and a board member. Late Thursday, they began posting content on an alternate publication they've set up, Red and Dead.

"The immediate plan right now is publish stories and do journalism like we were taught to do," News Editor Adina Solomon said in a phone interview. Solomon stressed she doesn't speak for the other students but says her goal is to reform The Red & Black. "I love the place. That's why I left in protest and that's why I am fighting to save it," she said.

Solomon said she couldn't "explain the feeling" when Polina Marinova, the paper's now-former editor-in-chief, "gathered us in the meeting room" Wednesday evening. "I'd already told her that if she leaves I leave. She said 'I'm leaving,' and we all said well we're all going too. And there was nobody in the room who disagreed. We walked out the door packed up our stuff and left. It's just been amazing how we've pulled together." (more...)

Some of the student journalists who walked out on the University of Georgia student newspaper The Red & Black on Wednesday will return for a meeting Thursday afternoon, publisher Harry Montevideo said in a phone interview. He wasn't sure which students would attend.

The students quit after the volunteer board for the paper, which operates independently from the university, changed Ed Morales' position from editorial adviser to editorial director. Morales is an employee of the paper, not a student at Georgia. Editor-in-Chief Polina Marinova resigned, saying in a blog post that students would no longer have final approval of content in the paper.

That's not the case, Montevideo said. From his point of view, the paper's board is trying to professionalize an existing relationship. "There has been prior review in the past," he said. "We've had an editorial adviser on staff since the '80s."

That may prove to be an important point: The Student Press Law Center says the "First Amendment drastically limits" a school's ability to to censor a student paper, and prior review is one activity courts have prohibited.

But The Red & Black is separate from the university, run by an independent board, and "virtually everybody" who works on the paper is paid, Montevideo said. (more...)

Athens Banner-Herald | The Red & Dead | Student Press Law Center | The Red & Black
Student journalists at University of Georgia newspaper The Red & Black walked out after the paper's board put its adviser, Ed Morales, in charge of the paper's editorial content. The students have set up a blog and a Twitter account, which was suspended but is now back in action. Karah-Leigh Hancock reports from Athens about how things went bad:

On Aug. 6, Kent Middleton, head of the journalism department at UGA’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication and a member of The Red & Black’s board of directors, sent out an email detailing the upcoming changes to The Red & Black. Among those changes were appointing Morales the editorial director, hiring new non-student marketing and product managers, a multimedia director, a business manager and a creative director.

Polina Marinova resigned as editor-in-chief of The Red & Black. In a post on the exiled students' blog, she describes some of the friction between the student journalists and its advisers before the split:

In a draft outlining the “expectations of editorial director at The Red & Black,” a member of The Red & Black’s Board of Directors stated the newspaper needs a balance of good and bad. Under “Bad,” it says, “Content that catches people or organizations doing bad things. I guess this is ‘journalism.’ If in question, have more GOOD than BAD.” I took great offense to that, but the board member just told me this is simply a draft. But one thing that would not change is that the former editorial adviser, now the editorial director, would see all content before it is published online and in print. For years, students have had final approval of the paper followed by a critique by the adviser only after articles were published. However, from now on, that will not be the case. Recently, editors have felt pressure to assign stories they didn’t agree with, take “grip and grin” photos and compromise the design of the paper.

Here's that draft memo. Under the rubric "Content that is unacceptable - Must Nots" it lists "Sarcastic comments directed at our audience in non-opinion sections" and "Liable," among other things. (more...)