- The Daily Free Press
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The Daily Free Press 
School Boston University Slogan "The independent student newspaper at Boston University" Nickname(s) The FreeP Editor(s) Saba Hamedy (Editor-in-Chief)
Chelsea Feinstein (Managing Editor)
Megan Riesz(Executive Editor)
Alex Nawar (Campus Editor)
Chelsea Diana (City Editor)
Sydney Moyer (Opinion Editor)
Craig Meyer (Sports Editor)
Amanda Swinhart (Photo Editor)Location Boston, Massachusetts Founded 1970 Owner The Back Bay Publishing Co. Frequency Daily Price Free Circulation 4,000 Monday-Wednesday
9,000 ThursdayFormat Tabloid ISSN 1094-7337 Printer Turley Publications, Inc. Website: http://www.dailyfreepress.com/ The Daily Free Press, an independent student newspaper at Boston University, began publication in 1970. On May 1, two newspapers merged into The Daily Free Press as students were responding to the Kent State shootings with a violent protest. Final exams and graduation were cancelled, and The Daily Free Press captured the moment in its first issue. It is now the publication at BU with the longest continuing run.
Contents
Overview
The Daily Free Press (commonly called The FreeP) had published an issue every instructional day since its formation until February 13, 2009. Earlier that week, the paper announced it would discontinue its Friday print publication due to the nation's fiscal crisis. It is distributed in most instructional buildings and dormitories around the BU campus. As of January 2006, circulation was 4,000 on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and 9,000 on Thursday.
The Daily Free Press has won numerous awards for its reporting, including the Columbia Press Association's Gold Medal Award for Excellence. The paper covers campus news, local (Boston-area) news, and campus sports, and publishes editorials, columns, and letters each day. In January 1980, the Arts and Entertainment coverage became The Muse, the FreeP's weekly A&E publication. Science Tuesday, the first collegiate weekly science section, began in the 1990s. Spotlight and InBusiness also provide students with a variety of feature stories on Wednesdays and Fridays, respectively.
The editorial staff of the FreeP is strictly volunteer. All writers, photographers and business staffers are BU students. Members of the editorial board regularly put in 50–60 hours per week, in addition to their classes. The editorial staff changes every semester, with the new staff being selected by a board of former FreeP editors. Stylistic, editorial and proofreading preference and ability shift with each new staff.
Every issue has a daily crossword puzzle and sudoku for students to complete.
Many alumni have gone on to careers in journalism, television and film, and a few have won the Pulitzer Prize.
Sports
The Daily Free Press sports section is notable for its extensive coverage of all BU sports teams, both varsity and club. It also features top-notch basketball and hockey blogs –– Full Court Press and the Boston Hockey Blog respectively. In addition to its distinguished writing, the sports section is largely responsible for keeping the office's atmosphere loose and upbeat.
The current sports editor is Craig Meyer. He is assisted by associate sports editors Tim Healey and Meredith Perri.
The Daily Free Press Online
Since January 1996, The Daily Free Press Online has been published at dailyfreepress.com every day that the print publication is distributed. The most recent online readership figures for the online edition are 28,000 weekly user sessions and 120,000 monthly page views.
On September 28, 2006 The Daily Free Press launched f-Stop Online, the paper's photographic journal. The journal is published every two weeks with the best photography that has been published in the paper, as well as photographer profiles and photo stories. f-Stop is run primarily by the photo editor with oversight from the editor-in-chief. Originally printed monthly in The Daily Free Press in the early 1990s, f-Stop discontinued paper publication due to the high cost.
Financial Woes
As of August 2009, Back Bay Publishing Co., the student-run company that owns the newspaper, owed more than $67,500 to their printer Turley Publications and just under $10,000 in rent to Boston University and had not paid some of their office staff for two months, according to a financial report compiled by a former editor-in-chief.[1]
Notable Daily Free Press Alumni
Some of the editors and writers of the Free Press have gone on to successful careers in the media include:
- David Barboza, a Beijing-based correspondent at The New York Times;
- Jim Bourg, Photographer/Photo Editor, Reuters
- Mark Cardwell, Managing Editor, Digital Media, The Denver Post
- Andrew Cohen, Denver-based lawyer and the CBS News legal affairs correspondent;
- Gabriel Donio, owner and publisher of The Hammonton Gazette
- Ian Donnis, an editor and media critic at The Providence Phoenix;
- Bruce Feirstein, an author, magazine writer and screenwriter;
- Ian Fisher, the Rome correspondent at The New York Times;
- Dan Forst, Staff writer at San Francisco Chronicle (now freelance)
- David Wainer, freelancer based in Jerusalem for Bloomberg News, Jerusalem Post, Haaretz
- Steve Gelsi, reporter at CBSMarketWatch.
- Larry Hackett, managing editor, People magazine
- Joseph T. Hallinan, an author and 1991 Pulitzer Prize-winner for work done at the Indianapolis Star, currently Wall Street Journal reporter ;
- Ray Henry, reporter, Associated Press
- Gerald Herbert, staff photographer, The Associated Press
- Matthew Horovitz, television producer;
- Kenneth Irby, photographer, Group Leader & Diversity Director, The Poynter Institute.
- Jeff Kline, an award-winning producer of children's TV programs;
- Larry Lebowitz, reporter, The Miami Herald
- Mike Mokrzycki, Director of Polling, The Associated Press
- Bill O'Reilly, television personality and journalist;
- Don Van Natta, Jr., an author and member of The New York Times staff receiving the Pulitzer Prize in 1999 & 2002;
- Jessica Van Sack, chief enterprise reporter, the Boston Herald
- Chris Nagi, managing editor, Bloomberg News
- Onell R. Soto, part of Pulitzer Prize-winning team at The San Diego Union-Tribune.
- Lisa Anne Auerbach, artist and recognized as one of the best American travel writers.
- Narendra Nandoe, Chief of the Publishing Section at the United Nations in New York.
Significant Stories/Editorials in The Daily Free Press' History
The Daily Free Press has at times drawn widespread attention for its coverage of, and opinions about, local issues.
The following are some of the articles and editorials that, for brief moments, brought citywide, and sometimes national, attention to The Daily Free Press.
- In 1988, The Daily Free Press writers Roger Ochoa and Chris Nagi covered the Ramones rally attended by more than 1500 students in protest of the university's ban on the historic rock 'n' roll band..
- In 1990, The Daily Free Press supported John Silber's opponent in the Democratic primary for Massachusetts governor. Silber, then on leave from his position as President of Boston University, was a dark horse primary winner and showed strong momentum in the campaign until its very last days.
- In 2003, The Daily Free Press covered the board's tumultuous decision not to allow president-elect Daniel Goldin to take the job.
- In 2004, The Daily Free Press covered the launching of Facebook.com before it became a national phenomenon.
- In 2004, The Daily Free Press reported from inside the State House as the Legislature debated a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
- In 2004, The Daily Free Press reported on the ground from Kenmore Square after the Boston Red Sox won their first World Series in 86 years. The riots that followed led to citywide legislation imposing strict penalties on students who commit crimes off campus.
- In 2004, The Daily Free Press reported from the press gallery at John Kerry's election night campaign rally in Copley Square. The FreeP's earlier coverage of "Votergasm," a controversial voter registration drive in which participants pledged to abstain from sex with non-voters, was cited by Rush Limbaugh on his radio show.
- In 2005, when two BU students were struck and killed by an MBTA commuter rail train behind Boston University's West Campus, The Daily Free Press coverage and editorial regarding the tragedy were spotlighted throughout the city, including citations by the Boston Globe and Harvard Crimson, among others.
- In 2005, The Boston Globe reported that because of an article in The Daily Free Press, mayoral candidate Maura Hennigan's campaign manager Mitch Kates's job was in question. Kates sparked controversy when he spoke at a meeting of the Boston University College Democrats and denounced mayor Thomas Menino, calling him "a drooling teddy bear" and hurling other such insults. Despite the controversy, The Daily Free Press endorsed Hennigan for mayor.
- In 2006, an editorial in The Daily Free Press was cited in the Metro for recommending that the MBTA increase fares even higher than initially proposed in order to significantly improve service.
- In 2009, The Daily Free Press discovered that the Boston University administration was dealing with the H1N1 pandemic by actively isolating and moving students with influenza-like symptoms into dormitories with healthy students without informing the residents of the introduced risk. While the administration was following the Centers for Disease Control's isolation recommendations, students protested the lack of administration's lack of transparency in dealing with the epidemic. Students who were isolated also complained of poor treatment.
- In 2009, The Daily Free Press provided extensive coverage of the Boston mayoral election, bringing candidates into the newsroom for in-depth interviews that later led to an endorsement of City Councilor-At-Large Michael Flaherty and his running mate, City Councilor-At-Large Sam Yoon.
- Menino 'positive' on win
- 'Floon' challenges incumbent
- STAFF EDIT: Progressing from the machine
- Flaherty, Yoon to run on joint ticket
- From Menino: 'a city that works for everyone'
- Flaherty: 'I subscribe to our Boston'
- Anti-politician McCrea demands total transparency
- Yoon pledges change if elected
- STAFF EDIT: A call for change
Back Bay Publishing Co., Inc
Back Bay Publishing Co., Inc., is a nonprofit Massachusetts corporation operated by Boston University students. It publishes the student paper 'The Daily Free Press"[2][3]
The Daily Free Press Alumni Association
In February 2008, a group of former staff members launched The Daily Free Press Alumni Association. The organization was formed to reconnect Daily Free Press alumni and raise money for The Daily Free Press. Its board of directors meets monthly and posts updates on its web site, dfpalumni.org.
References
- ^ http://dailyfreepress.com/2009/09/02/free-press-suffers-financial-shortfalls/
- ^ About The Daily Free Press at bizjournals.com
- ^ General Information;About The Daily Free Press at dailyfreepress.com
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