University Park, Pa. -- From gay rights to racial bias, from plummeting circulation to "infotainment," from burned-out reporters to hard-bitten editors, the documentary "The Paper" goes inside a newsroom to reveal the drama of pressure-cooker journalism. But this is not some big-city major daily. It's The Daily Collegian, published by students at Penn State who, in the course of year face crashing deadlines, ethical dilemmas, doubts and disagreements -- all while shouldering courses, homework and exams.The Paper" will have its national broadcast premiere on the Emmy Award-winning PBS series "Independent Lens" tonight (Dec. 11); check local listings from across the nation at http://www.pbs.org/tvschedules/.
Penn State and its award-winning, 20,000-circulation daily newspaper, The Daily Collegian, granted local filmmaker Aaron Matthews unprecedented and unfettered access to its 210-person newsroom. Functioning as both training ground and laboratory, the college newspaper is the place where future media makers grapple with the ethical questions of modern-day journalism. Students come face to face with the difficulty of performing investigative work while maintaining objectivity. They struggle over how to be fair and truthful, how to get access to information and how to deliver the facts while respecting their sources and their readers.
"The most fascinating thing about making 'The Paper' was seeing just how much this college newsroom was our media world in a nutshell," said Matthews. "These students struggle to report what's relevant, all while asking basic questions that newsmakers as well as news consumers seem to have stopped asking. Public trust in the news media has steadily declined over the last 20 years. The American media faces a real crisis of coverage and confidence. 'The Paper' holds up a mirror and offers us a fresh way to scrutinize our media system."
Matthews, whose award-winning documentaries have appeared on national and international television and in film festivals around the world, found the University to be a unique location to make a film. "What was great about making this film was getting to hang around an engaged student body. Both the young journalists at The Collegian and the groups who confront the newspaper over its coverage wrestled with major social issues and challenged the status quo. At a time when today's generation is depicted as cynical and apathetic, it was refreshing to be around that kind of energy."
Other films of Matthews include "A Panther in Africa," which explored the legacy of the 1960s through the eyes of former Black Panther and American exile, Pete O'Neal; and "My American Girls," which chronicles one Dominican family's immigrant experiences in Brooklyn; as well as other shorter documentaries.
One hundred years of The Daily Collegian — 1887 to 1987 — are now accessible as a digital archive. The Daily Collegian, which originally started as the Freelance in 1887 and changed names over time, has served as an important source for documenting student life. The Historical Digital Collegian at http://apps.libraries.psu.edu/digital/projects.cfm?type=newspapers provides access to all words, photographs and advertisements, and allows readers to browse the newspaper page by page, and search across issues and dates with ease.
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Work continues on digitizing remaining issues of The Daily Collegian. The latest segment of the Historical Digital Collegian joins other digital newspapers available at Penn State and include:
-- The Behrend Beacon (Penn State Erie student newspaper)
http://digitalnewspapers.libraries.psu.edu/default/client.asp?skin=behrend
-- Hazleton Highacres (Penn State Hazleton student newspaper)
http://digitalnewspapers.libraries.psu.edu/default/client.asp?skin=hazleton
-- Pennsylvania Civil War Newspapers
http://digitalnewspapers.libraries.psu.edu/default/client.asp?skin=civilwar
-- Lancaster Farming:
http://digitalnewspapers.libraries.psu.edu/default/client.asp?skin=lancasterfarming
A full list of digital projects and related initiatives developed within the University Libraries can be found here at http://apps.libraries.psu.edu/digital/index.cfm.
For information on the Historical Digital Collegian, contact Debora Cheney at (814)863 1345.