The Daily Free Press

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The Daily Free Press
School Boston University Slogan "The independent student newspaper at Boston University" Nickname(s) The FreeP
Information
Editor(s)	Stephanie Perry
Location	Boston, Massachusetts
Founded	1970
Owner	The Back Bay Publishing Co.
Frequency	Daily
Price	Free
Circulation	4,000 Monday-Wednesday 9,000 Thursday-Friday
Format	Tabloid
ISSN	1094-7337
Printer	Turley Publications, Inc.
Web address	http://www.dailyfreepress.com/

The Daily Free Press, an independent student newspaper at Boston University, began publication in 1970. On May 1, two newspapers merged into The Daily Free Press as students were responding to the Kent State shootings with a violent protest. Final exams and graduation were cancelled, and The Daily Free Press captured the moment in its first issue. It is now the publication at BU with the longest continuing run.

[edit] Overview

The Daily Free Press (commonly called The FreeP) has published an issue every instructional day since its formation. It is distributed in most instructional buildings and dormitories around the BU campus. As of January 2006, daily circulation was 9,000.

The Daily Free Press has won numerous awards for its reporting, including the Columbia Press Association's Gold Medal Award for Excellence. The paper covers campus news, local (Boston-area) news, and campus sports, and publishes editorials, columns, and letters each day. In January 1980, the Arts and Entertainment coverage became The Muse, the FreeP's weekly A&E publication. Science Tuesday, the first collegiate weekly science section, began in the 1990s. Spotlight and InBusiness also provide students with a variety of feature stories on Wednesdays and Fridays, respectively.

The editorial staff of the FreeP is strictly volunteer. All writers, photographers and business staffers are BU students. Members of the editorial board regularly put in 50-60 hours per week, in addition to their classes. The editorial staff changes every semester, with the new staff being selected by a board of former FreeP editors. Stylistic, editorial, and proofreading preference and ability shift with each new staff. Thus, some semesters are better than others.

Many alumni have gone on to careers in journalism, television and film, and a few have won the Pulitzer Prize.

[edit] The Daily Free Press Online

Since January 1996, The Daily Free Press Online has been published at dailyfreepress.com every day that the print publication is distributed. The most recent online readership figures for the online edition are 28,000 weekly user sessions and 120,000 monthly page views.

On September 28th, 2006 The Daily Free Press launched f-Stop Online, the paper's photographic journal. The journal is published every two weeks with the best photography that has been published in the paper, as well as photographer profiles and photo stories. f-Stop is run primarily by the photo editor with oversight from the editor-in-chief. Originally printed monthly in The Daily Free Press in the early 1990's, f-Stop discontinued paper publication due to the high cost.

[edit] Notable Daily Free Press Alumni

Some of the editors and writers of the Free Press have gone on to successful careers in the media include:

• David Barboza, a Beijing-based correspondent at The New York Times;
• Jim Bourg, Photographer/Photo Editor, Reuters
• Mark Cardwell, Managing Editor, Digital Media, The Denver Post
• Andrew Cohen, Denver-based lawyer and the CBS News legal affairs correspondent;
• Gabriel Donio, owner and publisher of The Hammonton Gazette
• Ian Donnis, an editor and media critic at The Providence Phoenix;
• Bruce Feirstein, an author, magazine writer and screenwriter;
• Ian Fisher, the Rome correspondent at The New York Times;
• Dan Forst, Staff writer at San Francisco Chronicle (now freelance)
• Steve Gelsi, reporter at CBSMarketWatch.
• Joseph T. Hallinan, an author and 1991 Pulitzer Prize-winner for work done at the Indianapolis Star, currently Wall Street Journal reporter ;
• Gerald Herbert, staff photographer, The Associated Press
• Matthew Horovitz, television producer;
• Kenneth Irby, photographer, Group Leader & Diversity Director, The Poynter Institute.
• Jeff Kline, an award-winning producer of children's TV programs;
• Larry Lebowitz, reporter, The Miami Herald
• Mike Mokrzycki, Director of Polling, The Associated Press
• Bill O'Reilly, television personality and journalist;
• Don Van Natta, Jr., an author and member of The New York Times staff receiving the Pulitzer Prize in 1999 & 2002;
• Chris Nagi, the Stock Markets editor at Bloomberg News and former Managing Editor at The Street.com
• Lisa Anne Auerbach, artist and recognized as one of the best American travel writers.

[edit] Significant Stories/Editorials in The Daily Free Press' History

The Daily Free Press has at times drawn widespread attention for its coverage of, and opinions about, local issues.

The following are some of the articles and editorials that, for brief moments, brought citywide, and sometimes national, attention to The Daily Free Press.

• In 1988, The Daily Free Press writers Roger Ochoa and Chris Nagi covered the Ramones rally attended by more than 1500 students in protest of the university's ban on the historic rock 'n' roll band..

• In 1990, The Daily Free Press supported John Silber's opponent in the Democratic primary for Massachusetts governor. Silber, then on leave from his position as President of Boston University, was a dark horse primary winner and showed strong momentum in the campaign until its very last days.

• In 2003, The Daily Free Press covered the board's tumultuous decision not to allow president-elect Daniel Goldin to take the job.
  • Goldin, BU part ways

• In 2004, The Daily Free Press covered the launching of Facebook.com before it became a national phenomenon.
  • BU newest edition to thefacebook.com

• In 2004, The Daily Free Press reported from inside the State House as the Legislature debated a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
  • Civil Union Compromise
  • Editorial: Amendment is a setback
  • Protesters take State House by storm

• In 2004, The Daily Free Press reported on the ground from Kenmore Square after the Boston Red Sox won their first World Series in 86 years. The riots that followed led to citywide legislation imposing strict penalties on students who commit crimes off campus.
  • Sox Celebrations Marred
  • Sox Sweep Cards to End Curse

• In 2004, The Daily Free Press reported from the press gallery at John Kerry's election night campaign rally in Copley Square. The FreeP's earlier coverage of "Votergasm," a controversial voter registration drive in which participants pledged to abstain from sex with non-voters, was cited by Rush Limbaugh on his radio show.
  • Copley dejected at early results; Edwards promises the fight is not over
  • Votergasm entices new voters with sex

• In 2005, when two BU students were struck and killed by an MBTA commuter rail train behind Boston University's West Campus, The Daily Free Press coverage and editorial regarding the tragedy were spotlighted throughout the city, including citations by the Boston Globe and Harvard Crimson, among others.
  • Two BU students struck and killed by train
  • Campus reacts to student deaths
  • Editorial: A Time for Grief and Healing

• In 2005, The Boston Globe reported that because of an article in The Daily Free Press, mayoral candidate Maura Hennigan's campaign manager Mitch Kates's job was in question. Kates sparked controversy when he spoke at a meeting of the Boston University College Democrats and denounced mayor Thomas Menino, calling him "a drooling teddy bear" and hurling other such insults. Despite the controversy, The Daily Free Press endorsed Hennigan for mayor.
  • Hennigan aide blasts Menino
  • Hennigan apologizes for aide's remarks

• In 2006, an editorial in The Daily Free Press was cited in the Metro for recommending that the MBTA increase fares even higher than initially proposed in order to significantly improve service.
  • Editorial: The Cost of Poor Service

[edit] The Dilemma of The Daily Free Press

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As a student newspaper, The Daily Free Press is prone to a constantly changing editorial staff as its senior members graduate and leave the university. As a result, the quality of editing changes as the editorial board does. While, as a student paper, the FreeP is afforded more leeway for amateur mistakes, the paper cannot be judged by a single semester or a single editor because the next semester might bring an entirely different approach, for better or worse.

In addition, the FreeP affords the opportunity to write to any undergraduate student both in and out of the College of Communication, much to the chagrin of some of the editors. Thus, the editors are left to deal with students who sometimes have issues constructing basic sentences and don't know the fundamentals of journalism. And while the editors do try to teach these students as they go, inevitably, some stories will be of lesser quality than others.

As a daily newspaper, the FreeP editors themselves have limited time to devote to training inexperienced writers even while their call lists are inundated with them.

The dilemma for the editors is attempting to maintain respectability in the quality of writing while keeping the doors open for any and all university students that want to get involved.

[edit] Back Bay Publishing Co., Inc

Back Bay Publishing Co., Inc., is a nonprofit Massachusetts corporation operated by Boston University students. It publishes the student paper 'The Daily Free Press"^[1][2] as well as the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction winner Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam written by Frances FitzGerald and published by both Back Bay Publishing and Little, Brown and Company in 1972,^[3]

[edit] References