Face the State Staff Report
As newspapers across the country struggle to keep their presses printing, a coalition of libertarian and conservative students at Denver's Auraria campus is publishing a new newspaper called The Constitutional Reporter.
The students, who attend Metropolitan State College and the University of Colorado Denver, say the bi-weekly newspaper will focus on campus, local, state, and national issues with a focus on promoting limited government. The student staff is overseen by Sean Doherty, a 22-year-old marketing and political science major at Metro who previously organized a "pirate protest" against Congresswoman Diana DeGette's approval of 2008's bank bailout.
Doherty says he got the idea to start a newspaper as a freshman, when he become frustrated with the coverage provided by The Metropolitan, the school's student paper. To start his own paper, Doherty sought and received grant funding from The Leadership Institute, a non-profit, conservative leadership training organization. After the grant money runs out, the paper will count on advertising and sales revenue to continue.
The first edition was released at the beginning of this month with a feature story titled, "Where does all your tuition money go?" Included in the report was a two-page table of administrator salaries and a discussion of "strange but true staff titles" like a "benefits manager", a "tools of the mind trainer", and a "distance education coordinator".
Also to be included regularly in future editions, according to Doherty, will be a weekly literature review, letters to the editor, and advertisements for free-market organizations such as Liberty on the Rocks and the Independence Institute.
Doherty maintains that the concept wasn't welcomed by the campus administration, however. Doherty told Face the State he got verbal approval to start the paper from the Auraria campus governing body, but days later received a phone call questioning the motives behind a publication containing the word "constitutional" in the title. Although the paper will not seek campus funding, Doherty said he sought approval as an "insurance policy."
"Seeking administrative approval was a preemptive business move," he said. "By getting prior approval, [campus administrators] could not claim that we are coming out of nowhere and then try to put a ban on our paper or take any disciplinary action against the students involved."
When he followed up on the verbal go-ahead from the campus, he was told the administration had reconsidered and withdrawn its support.
"[Administrators] told me they didn't want to pick up our paper and see a swastika on the cover," said Doherty. "I questioned them about what could be radical about the term 'constitutional', but they did not cite any specific concerns or examples. They asked specifically if this was a Republican newspaper, I responded that it was non-partisan, and then they said they did not want anything that could be considered hateful or illegal on the campus."
But according to campus spokesman Freddie Arck, the students are welcome to distribute the publication on campus.
"We are not in a position to support any particular newspaper," said Arck. "The publishers are welcome to use the publication boxes [for distribution] in the Tivoli Student Union, which are on a first come first serve basis. If we don't agree with it, we can't just pull it."
The paper's 13-person staff has a sense of humor they're hoping will connect with their young readers. On the paper's Web site, a topless photo of Doherty appears next to a description that says he "can't stand the sight of any natural environment and despises all cute mammals." Staff writer Michael Kruger describes himself as "the capitalist, gun-toting, meat-eating, right-winger your liberal professors warned you about."Rocky Mountain News."
Currently, the students are working on a the third issue for release in March.