The Campus Echo is the official student newspaper of North Carolina Central University. NCCU, a historically black university (HBCU), is one of the 16 constituent member schools of the University of North Carolina System. It has been targeted as a “growth institution” by UNC. NCCU, with its 8,250 students, is located in the heart of Durham just minutes from the Research Triangle Park, a booming technology and biotechnology center.

The Campus Echo is one of the most highly recognized HBCU student newspaper in the nation. The print and online editions have won over 150 awards from the Black College Communication Association, the Society for Professional Journalists, and the Associated Collegiate Press. These honors include the national Mark of Excellence Award for Best Online Student Newspaper and numerous general excellence awards from the BCCA and the SPJ. NCCU’s Campus Echo is distributed to over 30 campus locations.

A newspaper is a written publication containing news, information and advertising, usually printed on low-cost paper called newsprint. General-interest newspapers often feature articles on political events, crime, business, art/entertainment, society and sports. Most traditional papers also feature an editorial page containing columns which express the personal opinions of writers. Supplementary sections may contain advertising, comics, coupons, and other printed media. Newspapers are most often published on a daily or weekly basis, and they usually focus on one particular geographic area where most of their readers live. Despite recent setbacks in circulation and profits, newspapers are still the most iconic outlet for news and other types of written journalism.

African-American newspapers came into existence before the Civil War as a medium of expression of abolitionist sentiment. In 1827, Samuel Cornish and John B. Russwarm started the first African-American periodical, called Freedom’s Journal . Freedom’s Journal initiated the trend of African-American papers throughout the United States to fight for liberation and rights, demonstrate racial pride, and inform readers of events affecting the African-American community. Unfortunately, because the African-Americans able to support the paper and the white abolitionists were few, the paper ended its circulation in 1830. Also, during the antebellum South, other African-American newspapers came about. One of these, the North Star, founded by Frederick Douglass, had the same fate as Freedom’s Journal .

As African-Americans migrated from fields to urban centers, virtually every large city with a significant African-American population soon had African-American newspapers. Examples were the Chicago Defender, Detroit Tribune, the Pittsburgh Courier, and the (New York) Amsterdam News. While it was certainly important for African-American newspapers to report the news of the day, it was not their primary purpose. Most cities already had daily newspapers that were aimed to the general public. The idea of an African-American newspaper was to give African-Americans the news through the lens of their own eyes.

From an economic perspective, African-American newspapers were formed in order to make a profit. According to a study of early African-American newspapers, the “primary motivation” of African-American newspaper proprietors was “not uplift, but profit.” In addition, from a social standpoint, these newspapers were a source of pride for the African-American community and a focal point for African-Americans to stick together and fight the constant oppression they were under. Taking this into account, it seems apparent that it was most beneficial for African-American newspaper editors to be motivated by both uplift and profit.

In the United States today, it is not uncommon for cities to have a variety of newspapers (printed in a variety of languages) that are aimed at specific racial, ethnic, and religious groups. Because large newspapers tend to cover the news that would be of interest to the majority (and thus not the minority) of people, it is easy to see why people of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds would be interested in hearing about events from people who might see the world with the same cultural lens as themselves.

For more exciting reads concernig college and community news, please visit web.nccu.edu/campus/echo/.

Portions of this article were provided by Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a U.S. registered 501(c)(3) tax-deductible nonprofit charity from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspaper and http://cti.itc.virginia.edu/~aas405a/newspaper.html. Internet. Retrieved 26 August 2008