FSView & Florida Flambeau
| Type | Student newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Broadsheet |
| Owner(s) | Gannett Company |
| Founded | 1998 |
| Headquarters | 954 W Brevard St. Tallahassee, Florida United States |
| Circulation | Monday and Thursday: 25,000 |
| Website | www.fsunews.com |
| Free online archives | tallahasseefsview.fl.newsmemory.com |
The FSView & Florida Flambeau is a for-profit newspaper owned by the Gannett Company that covers the on-campus events, happenings, and trends of the Florida State University as well as concerts, museum and art exhibits, movies, literature and poetry readings, and other events from the larger Tallahassee community. In early August 2006 the FSView made national news as being the first privately owned, college-oriented newspaper to be bought by a major newspaper chain.[1]
History
The FSView & Florida Flambeau is a resulting combination of two past publications that battled for readership during the 1990s. The officially recognized, university-supported Florida Flambeau started out during the time of the Florida State College for Women in 1915. The Flambeau dealt with the history and development of the college as well as matters on the local and global scales, as evidenced by the content of its second issue on January 30, 1915.[2]
The Flambeau continued in this tradition until 1971, when it became independent from the university. Then, in 1992, its main rival, the privately owned FSView, challenged the Flambeau's audience. The FSView co-founded by John Piemonte, who handled ad sales and administrative functions and John Webb who handled editorial/publishing and technical areas came as an alternative to the Flambeau, which had come under criticism by some university and student leaders as being harshly critical of Greek life in fraternities and sororities.[3] Rich Templin, the Florida State University Student Senate President in the mid-1990s, had this to say to The Chronicle of Higher Education about the emergence of the FSView:
"It was a coordinated campaign to eliminate the one critical voice on campus."[3]
Templin continued to speak to the Chronicle, though the article did not quote him verbatim:
The Flambeau was run out of business by the Greek organizations and other student leaders, along with university administrators, who hoped to do away with its investigative reporting and critical coverage, [Templin said].[3]
In 1998, the flailing Flambeau was bought out by the thriving FSView, which had gained momentum by acquiring the ads of fraternities and sororities.
On August 3, 2006, it was reported that Gannett, the owner of USA Today and the local Tallahassee paper, Tallahassee Democrat, had acquired the FSView & Florida Flambeau, although, according to the deal, the college paper would remain "student-run".[4]
Current operations
The FSView & Florida Flambeau publishes semiweekly on Mondays and Thursdays during fall and spring semesters following Florida State University's academic calendar. (No issues are released during spring or winter breaks, for example.) During the summer, issues are only released once a week on Thursdays.
Editorial content within the FSView & Florida Flambeau conforms to loose Associated Press Stylebook standards, with limited variation.
The current circulation estimate of the paper is around 25,000. According to the Florida Press Association,[5] the FSView must have been between 10,000–29,999 in 2006 to win one of its classified awards (see "Awards and Honors" section below).
The FSView & Florida Flambeau is an affiliate of UWIRE,[6] which distributes and promotes its content to their network.
Awards and honors
The FSView & Florida Flambeau is the winner of the following awards:
- 2006 Associated Collegiate Press Newspaper Pacemaker Award[7]
- 2006 Florida Press Association Classified Award for Best Real Estate Classified Ad/Rental – Color or Black & White[8]
- 2012 Associated Collegiate Press Newspaper Pacemaker Award[9]
Notes
- ↑ Gannett Purchases Student Paper :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education's Source for News, Views and Jobs
- ↑ Florida Flambeau Vol. 1, No. 2
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 The Chronicle: June 22, 2001: A Private, For-Profit Campus Newspaper Gains a Monopoly at a Public University
- ↑ Merge ahead?
- ↑ Florida Press
- ↑ http://www.uwire.com/content/affiliates.html
- ↑ ACP – Contest Winners
- ↑ Florida Press Association 2005 Better Weekly Contest List of Winne
- ↑ ACP – Contest Winners
