Support for Radford’s student paper

Posted byJeff SouthPosted ingeneral

The board of directors of the Virginia Pro Chapter of SPJ sent a letter to the Radford University administration expressing our support for the student newspaper, The Tartan, and our concerns over the disappearance of most copies of the paper’s Sept. 18 issue.

At a time when journalists in the U.S. and around the world are under attack, we believe universities have a duty to defend the First Amendment. We encourage Radford University’s student affairs office and the school administration to recognize the importance of a free and independent press in the community, whether that community is a campus or a nation.

Here is the full text of our letter.

Published by Jeff South

For more than 40 years, I have worked in journalism – first as a newspaper reporter and editor and then as a teacher preparing the next generation of news professionals. As both a journalist and a journalism educator, I have carved out a specialty in using technology to find, report and tell powerful news stories. As a Fulbright scholar and newsroom trainer, I have worked with journalism students and practitioners in Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America and across the United States.