Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Robert Morris students join the Fourth Estate! Watchdog reporters keep school on its toes!
The announcement didn't quite come like that -- no screaming headlines in hot lead. Still, the news is that there even is news again at the suburban college campus: For the first time in nine years, Robert Morris University has a student newspaper, The Sentry, which made its debut on Feb. 15.
The paper's launch is a precursor to the school's addition of an academic journalism major in the fall. The program has been two years in the making, Dr. Rex Crawley, head of the communications department said, and the paper will be a recruitment tool for the program.
"Our goal ultimately is to train students for the workforce, for careers in journalism," Dr. Crawley said. "Our other goal is to provide a student voice on campus."
Sentry editor Krysta Aina (pronounced Ay-een-ah) is a junior communications major from Pike, N.Y., a small town between Buffalo and Rochester. She said the Sentry's aim is to cover campus news, events and sports and to offer a healthy dose of opinions.
As is, the first issue covered plenty of topics. Included were:
An opinion piece about Valentine's Day, an article about former British Prime Minister John Major, who visited the university before appearing Downtown as part of the school's Pittsburgh Speakers Series, an article about a new health services program at the school and the recap of a women's basketball game.
The blanket of coverage won't stop at University Boulevard, either: The Sentry intends to write about issues affecting college students and entertainment offerings at large, in and around Pittsburgh.
The eight-page paper is published biweekly, off site by Gateway Publications. Dr. Steve Urbanski, a Post-Gazette staff member, serves as a co-adviser to the paper. Dr. Urbanski also teaches journalism at Point Park University, previously taught at Duquesne University and still is an adviser to that school's student newspaper, The Duke.
The title was chosen as part of a naming contest, the winning entry submitted by a part-time faculty member, Anthony Rodi. Ultimately, the staff wants to expand each edition to 12 pages. The paper sells ad space to local businesses, mostly in Moon.
Ms. Aina said that typically, the editors meet at 9 p.m. on the Wednesday before the next edition to discuss story ideas and put together a news budget. The editors put assignments out to the writers, then reconvene at 9 on Monday and Tuesday nights to edit copy and lay out the pages on the computer.
A newsroom is still under construction, so an additional production challenge has the Sentry staff jockeying for computer space temporarily with other students in the school's Media Arts Center lab.
They hit the send button in the wee hours, and by Wednesday morning, hundreds of copies of the Sentry are floating around Robert Morris dorms and classrooms.
"After the first issue, we got a lot of feedback from teachers, which is good, but we want students to read it and get the most out of it. We aren't writing it for the faculty," Ms. Aina said.
"A lot of kids drive to school, do their thing and go home, and they don't really care about what is going on at their school," she said. The Sentry hopes to change that by creating a dialogue among students.
That is one of the Sentry's editorial challenges: creating a sense of school spirit while not being a cheerleader at an institution that has traditionally had a large commuter population.
"We write the news, we don't try to spin it. You have to be objective," Ms. Aina said.
Robert Klemko, a freshman from Silver Spring, Md., is the sports editor. He said that after months of preparation, it's been gratifying to see The Sentry finally in print.
"It's very cool. Robert Morris isn't used to having a paper, so some people are excited to talk to you, and others are skeptical," Mr. Klemko said.
He takes over a beat that should grow significantly. Robert Morris has added several sports programs in recent years, including men's and women's hockey, men's and women's lacrosse, and field hockey, in addition to mainstays like soccer, basketball and football.
"We want to talk about the most popular sports in the main articles, but we'll try to cover every other sport somehow," he said.
Of the paper as a whole, Mr. Klemko said, "We're working the kinks out. The later issues will be much better than the first. We can do much better."
First Published: March 2, 2006, 5:00 a.m.
