Fake news? No jobs? Prospective journalists soldier on

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) — The Daily Orange isn't daily anymore.

The student-run newspaper that has covered Syracuse University since 1903, and trained generations of journalists, now prints three issues per week. Editor-in-chief Haley Robertson wonders where she'll find advertisers, worries about firing friends, and searches for alumni donors who will pay to send reporters on the road to cover the university's sports teams.

These are problems not unlike those that bedevil executives two or three times her age — evidence of how the news industry's woes have seeped onto campuses that try to harness youthful energy and idealism to turn out professionals who can inform the world.

Meanwhile, college journalism educators are changing the way they teach in a race against obsolescence. They're emphasizing versatility and encouraging a spirit of entrepreneurship.

After some brutal years, there are signs of life. Much as the journalistic pursuit of a crooked president in the 1970s inspired a generation, another leader who denounces reporters as enemies on a nearly daily basis has given birth to a new resolve: Enrollment in journalism programs is up.

"When I look at local news and see what's happening, I'm pessimistic," said Kathleen Culver, journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. "When I look at 18- and 20-year-olds and see what they want to do, I'm optimistic."

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Thousands of young journalists train for the future on a dual track, in classrooms and in student-run newsrooms that are models for the places they hope to work someday.

For Robertson, that means hours a day in a dingy office with yellowed headlines glued to the wall, metal file cabinets signed by editors dating back nearly 50 years and a ripped upholstered couch carried from the Daily...