Guest Paper: Sinclair Clarion

Tuesday, September 20, 2011


While not commercial publications, I do enjoy reading school newspapers to peruse the work of our nation's future journalists.  The Clarion is the official paper of Sinclair Community College and I had the chance to pick up their initial fall edition yesterday on a visit to their campus.  An 8-page broadsheet, the publication incorporates local news/information with syndicated items from McClatchy Newspapers.  One of those pages is dedicated to opinion (editorials, cartoons, letters) and is reflective of a healthy relationship between the editorial staff and their readership.

This particular edition coincided with the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and featured a retrospect by reporter Erika Bolstad and an opinion piece by Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Leonard Pitts Jr.  I was going to provide a link to the paper's website but my computer security software has flagged it as untrustworthy (fake AV redirect requests).  Unfortunately, this is a reality that online publications face on a daily basis in our internet-based world.

I took a very hard look at Sinclair when I was researching journalism programs.  The school does offer several journalism-related courses (plus an opportunity to intern with the Dayton Daily News) but they are only available to students as part of an overall communication degree program (I already have four--two associates, one bachelors and one masters--and wasn't wanting to add a fifth).  This limitation was the ultimate deciding factor in my selection of the University of Massachusetts Amherst to pursue my dream (and their certificate).

No comments:

Post a Comment