Newsroom

CORVALLIS - It doesn't benefit from a journalism school and it has one of the smaller budgets in the country but that hasn't stopped the Oregon State University student newspaper from being named one of four finalists in the Society of Professional Journalists' competition to crown the best college newspaper in the United States.

The Daily Texan at the University of Texas at Austin, the Daily Lantern at Ohio State University and the Rocky Mountain Collegian at Colorado State University will join OSU's Daily Barometer as the four finalists in the contest. All four newspapers qualified through a regional competition, with the Daily Barometer winning Region XII, which consists of college newspapers in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Alaska.

"It really is amazing, when you consider the schools we are competing against all have huge journalism schools and large annual budgets," said Frank Ragulsky, OSU's student media adviser.

The Daily Texan has won the award the past two years. It has an annual budget of $2.5 million. The Daily Lantern at Ohio State has an annual budget of $1.8 million and the Rocky Mountain Collegian sports a budget of $951,761. That compares to the $421,807 annual budget of the Daily Barometer.

Ragulsky says the OSU newspaper is able to compete with larger student newspapers because of a strong internship program.

"Every summer we have two to five students working at newspapers around the state," Ragulsky said. "They bring a load of experience back to the newsroom each year."

This year's editor, Allison Pyburn, has a summer internship at the Statesman-Journal in Salem. The summer editor, Schellene Clendenin, had an internship last summer at the Grants Pass Daily Courier.

"Being part of another newsroom gives you a different perspective when you face challenges," said Scott Johnson, last year's editor for the Daily Barometer, who is now working at the Anchorage Daily News in Alaska. Ragulsky said he is working with Johnson to see if the former editor can represent the university at the Sept. 14 Society of Professional Journalists' conference in Fort Worth, Texas. That's when one of the four finalists will be named best college newspaper in the U.S.

Ragulsky said Johnson is part of a group of students who have served on the Daily Barometer staff during the past five years and transformed the newspaper into an award-winning publication.

Ragulsky said it hasn't been easy rebuilding the newspaper following the taxpayer-imposed budget cuts of the early 1990s. That's when technical journalism was eliminated at the school. Prior to the cuts, the Daily Barometer was often a regional winner but was never named among the national finalists. For the past 11 years, the newspaper has operated without the benefit of an academic major.

The Daily Barometer is OSU's student newspaper, published by the Student Media Committee on behalf of the Associated Students of OSU. It is written and edited by OSU students, and includes news articles, editorials and advertisements.

The first issue was published in 1896 as the College Barometer and subsequent issues were published monthly. The paper was discontinued in 1898 due to the Spanish-American War, but was revived in 1900. In 1907, it became a weekly and in 1921 a semi-weekly paper.

It became the Daily Barometer in 1923 and is still published daily when classes are in session. The Summer Barometer is published weekly during the summer term.