Greetings,
My name is Eric Ford and I'm a student at Stanford University and writer for the Intermission section of the Daily.
I just received word from my former journalism teacher back home that
the Ventura County Community College District trustees have shut down
the all the school newspapers and journalism programs for the community
colleges back home (Ventura County is in Southern California, an hour
north from LA). In addition to the eradication of the journalism
programs, my former teacher, currently a professor at the
community college in charge of the journalism program has lost her
job because of these cuts.
This is just one of many injustices that have been done against these
journalism programs in the past, there's been issues of censorship,
denied rights to the First Amendment, and accusations by leaders of the
district accusing these student-run newspapers of practicing "Yellow
Journalism" and calling them tabloids.
I know its not an immediate issue to Stanford, but this is something
that's slowly becoming a big issue for community colleges across
California. Journalism deserves a chance to thrive in any educational
setting, and its not right that budget cuts are being used as a scape
goat for the unfair censorship of these programs.
Eric Ford
Phi Sig RCC
Stanford Undergraduate, Class of 2006
Apple Campus Representative