I wrote this on Hatch on March 13, 2015, presented here without edit. See Hatching Inside Medium for context on this collection.

The College Journalism Opportunity

A student-run Medium publication could be the model for other college journalism programs


On March 13, Saul and I met with Toni Albertson, the journalism professor at Mt. San Antonio College outside of Los Angeles who moved her students’ journalism efforts — a newspaper and a lifestyle magazine — from print entirely onto Medium in the publication Substance. She brought two of her students with her (they were in town for a conference).

We already knew that they were getting a lot out of switching to Medium — she had previously told us how widely read some of the stories were, especially in comparison to the print readership — but we hadn’t understood quite how much until we talked to them. Here are just a few ways:

  • Toni said that Substance on Medium had breathed new life into journalism on campus and transformed the school’s thinking about the program. They’re creating an entirely new interdisciplinary program that combines journalism with photography, graphic design, and other visual arts. Substance has a higher profile on campus than the print publications ever did. (An important point is that Toni has the support of the school’s president.)
  • Toni felt like they needed to go cold turkey on print and move entirely online, all at once; otherwise, students might still want to write for print first. The students who visited are not at all attached to or romanticizing print.
  • The quality of writing is higher than it was in print. Students compete to get published by Substance. Toni is thinking of creating another publication that could house stories by those who aren’t yet qualified for Substance — a farm team for the student publication.
  • The students are incredibly proud to be publishing on Medium — they feel a part of something special. They get a kick out of feeling like they’re being published “next to Barack Obama,” and they’re thrilled to be part of our custom domain launch.
  • Many of the students go on to journalism programs at four-year colleges (Mt. San Antonio is a two-year college). One of the student editors is being courted by UCLA.
  • The students have experienced feedback on a whole different level. One student was shocked that his piece, on Latino gay machismo, garnered 17,000 views and is now working on a documentary based on his story. The other nearly “cried” when one story reached 3,000 views and another set off a firestorm on Twitter involving the Westboro Baptist Church.
  • UCLA has expressed interest to Toni in following Substance’s model.

Toni is eager to see what else they could bring onto Medium — for instance, hyper-local student reporting about local issues that could be captured via shorts. She is also committed to finding an advertiser.

Substance has created a successful model for other college publications in part by themselves modeling after Matter. They spoke glowingly about Matter’s quality, art, and design, and said they try to emulate it.

It’s clear that other college publications could model themselves after Substance. To start with, Toni is going to introduce us to her contact at UCLA, and we’ll pursue contacts at NYU.

One of the comments that she made struck me: She remembers seeing copies of the print newspaper blowing in the wind, read by no one.