The Echoes Die for the Student-run Canyon Call

FREE PRESS -- After 40 years, a student newspaper as old as the Santa Clarita-area community college it covered has been shut down—and with it, five journalism classes, reports Molly Lovelady for the Lumberjack at Humboldt State. Administrators who terminated the Canyon Call blame declining j-class enrollment, declining student interest in newspapers as information sources, and declining job opportunities for newspaper-trained graduates.

President of the (College of the Canyons) Board of Trustees Joan MacGregor said the classes have always been under-enrolled. Instead of furloughing faculty this semester, the college cut classes that were under-enrolled. MacGregor explained the enrollment rate was so low because fewer students are able to get positions in print media. The school is writing a new curriculum for the journalism program that incorporates other kinds of media online.

“Younger people do not support print,” said MacGregor. “I’m not trying to silence anybody. We have no conflict with anybody. I think the print media is essential. I read it every morning.”

Superintendent and Vice President of Instruction Mitjl Capet said the paper’s adviser, Jim Ruebsamen, retired. Now the school is moving the paper to an online version, something that Ruebsamen didn’t want to do before he retired because he wanted to finish his career there the way he had always been running it.

Capet said that they have been working on the new curriculum for about two years, so it is not a spur of the moment decision. The new online version of the paper should be ready by February.

Meanwhile students have no paper this semester.“This is a transition and not a cancellation,” said Capet. “Our job is to prepare people for the real world, and not what was.”

The student newspaper not only benefited those majoring in journalism, but all students. On the Save the Canyon Call Web site one student, Lynette Liberda, wrote, “Journalism is not only important for students who are majoring in journalism, it is important for all of the students at COC! If I had not participated in the Canyon Call, I would have never attended any school functions and realized what a great school we have. Being able to share that information through the photos I took and stories I wrote was truly fulfilling. We need our voice back, please give it to us.”

The Canyon Call is not the only student newspaper in California that has been eliminated. Dominguez Hills and Cerritos College in Norwalk have also shut down their papers. In both cases students are protesting and trying to get them back. When Ehresman was asked if he agreed that students were missing out on an important First Amendment opportunity he replied, “Yes, very much so.”