Let’s get this right out of the way: The State Hornet is a “real” newspaper. The student reporters keep careful watch over how student fees are being spent; they keep their fellow students informed of on-campus crime; and they also highlight the incredible achievements of the diverse student population. Consider this: Galt, Calif., a town just south of Sacramento, has a population of 23,647; as of 2015, 30,284 students were enrolled at Sac State. That is — quite literally — more people than live in a small city. Sac State, then, is its own small city, and as such, it’s imperative that its newspaper is located within its city limits.
When I was at Sac State, I started as a news reporter at the Hornet, then became assistant news editor, then news editor. I would’ve stayed on until I graduated (and then some), but my Hornet experience had helped earn me a paid internship at The Sacramento Bee in my junior year, and so I had to quit. (Oh, so many tears shed over this decision.) During my years at Sac State, my colleagues and I covered ASI elections, protests and crime on campus, all while running back and forth to our newsroom so writers could confer with their editors on the best way to proceed. We were in the thick of the action, and our coverage was better for it.
But beyond that, an on-campus newsroom is vital for the student newspaper staffers themselves. Behavioral science tells us that organizations thrive when people are “forced” to mingle — when you run into your colleagues more often, you get to talking. When you get to talking, that usually sparks an idea. This can and does happen online, but it happens more often in person. I don’t want to use the phrase “in my day,” but — in my day, in between classes, all of us Horneteers would spend all of our free time in the newsroom, talking over story ideas and just getting to know each other. I made friends for life at the Hornet. Last summer, I was maid of honor in Megan Lloyd-Jones’s wedding (she was assistant news editor when I was news editor); here in New York, where I live now, Josh Leon (former opinion editor) lives a block and a half away. I’m just not convinced those same kinds of forever-friendships would form if the newsroom were relocated so far off campus; no one would go, which means no one would get to know each other. That breaks my heart.
The Hornet gave me some of my best friends; it also gave me my career. From the Bee, I went on to MSNBC.com, then NBCNews.com, and in 2014 I joined New York Magazine. I’m living my dream career, and it all started when I was a nervous freshman in 2004, timidly walking in my application to the Hornet newsroom. (It was located, after all, in the Student Union, easily accessible in between my classes.)
