printable versionStanford Report: A look back
The university's award-winning faculty, staff newspaper says goodbye after 41 years
BY CASEY LINDBERG
The design (and name) of 'Stanford Report' has changed, but the newspaper has remained a consistent source of news about the campus for over four decades.
Enelda Wade, currently University Communications financial management analyst, in 1971.
Staff members through the years included, from left, Karen Bartholomew, Lenita Fedderson and former News Director Bob Beyers.
Chuck Painter served as the News Service photographer for three decades.
From faculty debates over the canon, to fires, floods and earthquakes, visits from heads of state and the convocation of a First Daughter, the university's newspaper for faculty and staff has chronicled the significant events of the university for 41 years. As Stanford Report nears the end of its life in print and goes completely electronic, we take a look back at some key events that shaped not only the culture of the publication itself but of the university and surrounding community.
September 18, 1968 - The 'Report' is born
Originally called Campus Report, the weekly publication was established to cover issues of concern that came before the Faculty Senate and Academic Council, the Board of Trustees, and other campus groups and committees. There were existing university publications, but Campus Report incorporated these different sources of information—most important, the Stanford Calendar and the Faculty-Staff Newsletter—into one weekly publication.
"The Faculty-Staff Newsletter was something that led up to that, but the Campus Report was considered a completely different publication," said University Archivist Margaret Kimball.
Karen Bartholomew, editor of Campus Report from 1984 to 1986, elaborated on the original purpose of the newspaper.
"Campus Report had a very specific function—as the vehicle for broad dissemination of Faculty Senate minutes—and the news coverage of academic affairs and university governance grows from that," said Bartholomew.
Campus Report also sought to break new ground in terms of its coverage of campus issues. As stated in the first issue, it aimed to "encourage multisided debate on campus problems" through its reporting and letters to the editor.
Over the coming decades, Campus Report would have the opportunity to cover marquee events on campus—from visits by Queen Elizabeth II in 1983 and President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 to the Super Bowl in 1984 and the World Cup in 1994.
Sometimes though, Campus Report would serve as more than a news outlet—it served as a platform for faculty debates and for resistance to developments like the proposal to build the Reagan Library on campus, and at least once, it was caught right in the middle of a story it was trying to cover.
Campus demonstrations at Encina Hall
In early May 1970, campus protests of the Vietnam War erupted all over the country. The same week as the fatal shootings at Kent State University, which left four students dead, Stanford student protesters dialed up their efforts to disrupt normal university business, including operations at Encina Hall, where Campus Report production offices were housed.
On May 6, 1970, Campus Report described the activity at Encina Hall that week:
"Some employees in Encina Hall slept in the building. Other workers reported to work early, only to be turned away by students who had arrived at 6 a.m. to block passage.
"Minor scuffles were reported, and on Monday a lone secretary from Hoover Institution was assaulted by a bearded young male demonstrator who struck her over her left eye with the back of his fist. He was not identified."
Pat Black, who began working at the News Service in 1963, serving as Campus Report editor from 1973 to 1984, recalled those days and nights in Encina Hall when the students barricaded the doors. Her own car was dented from a rock.
"We heard that they were going to barricade the doors starting at 8 in the morning, so we went in at 7 instead, or 7:30," said Black. "The next day they came at 7:30 and we came at 7 … it started getting too early, so we ended up bringing sleeping bags in."
Amid the tense atmosphere, the news staff was still concerned with the students' welfare.
"We brought in appliances to make breakfast, and we ended up one day dropping a bagful of buttered toast with jam on it down to the students who were blockading the doors," said Black.
As Campus Report continued to grow in the 1970s and 1980s, it struggled with its identity as a publication as it sought to cover both the news for the university itself and the news on campus for the outside world. Sometimes this would result in conflicting views between its news director, concerned faculty and the administration. The possibility of a Reagan Library coming to campus proved to be particularly contentious.
Forging a new identity
Actions by the Hoover Institution have often been the focus of contending liberal and conservative viewpoints on campus. In the mid-1980s, officials at the institution and senior members of the university administration were in discussions with President Ronald Reagan and the Reagan Presidential Foundation making plans to build his presidential library on campus. Faculty who were opposed to the plans used Campus Report as a vehicle for expressing their discontent.
"There were certain faculty members who were always writing letters," remembered President Emeritus Donald Kennedy.
On April 23, 1987, and after a steadily growing uneasiness over the library plans among faculty and students, the Reagan Presidential Foundation announced it was withdrawing its plans.
The front-page story written by then news director Bob Beyers ran with the title: "Reagan Library cancelled at Stanford; Early reaction: surprise, relief, regret."
Kennedy was quoted as issuing a statement that said: "We were proceeding diligently and on schedule with our planning for the library, and so we are naturally disappointed with the decision."
Sometimes, the administration also would be concerned with the way that Campus Report handled the news it was covering.
Kennedy remembered Campus Report during his years as president as a publication that, under Beyers, covered Stanford stories not just for the campus but also for the general public.
"It served a dual function of telling Stanford stories outside as well as telling Stanford inside," said Kennedy, whose presidency was marked by the indirect cost disputes with the federal government.
Kennedy spoke of the contention that would arise between Beyers and the administration and faculty.
"There was some contention; I got into that from time to time," said Kennedy. "I felt that Bob [Beyers] was treating us in the way a very responsible outside journalist would treat us. … When there were critical issues under way on campus, they would be reported not only in the Report but be communicated to other newspapers."
Kennedy said that there were certainly "a few people on the faculty who might be concerned about that and certainly some of my colleagues would sometimes have legal concerns."
Overall, though, Kennedy remembers the relationship in a positive light.
"My recollection is that our relationship was pretty good," said Kennedy, who then added, "I think the Report's gotten better significantly since then."
1989 Loma Prieta earthquake
On Oct. 17, 1989, at 5:04 p.m., just as the Campus Report staff was putting an issue to bed, the Loma Prieta earthquake struck the Bay Area. Theresa Johnston, who worked in various roles as an editor and writer from 1979 to 1995, recalled the event.
"I was eight months pregnant … I looked up and I saw the ceiling tiles in the old press building start to shake violently and I knew immediately what was going on, so I got under my desk," said Johnston, who is now a freelance writer.
Johnston remembered going out of the building and surveying the damage around campus while collecting images and quotes. The News Service team worked quickly to put out a "Special 'Quake Edition" just three days later, with stories covering everything from the earthquake's toll on students' emotions to the various damage reports and cleanup plans.
Johnston said that their hard work to put out the special issue was important because "it gave a lot of people much better sense of what had happened to the campus."
In recent years, the paper, called Stanford Report since the 1995-1996 academic year, has been able to offer an even more immediate sense of campus news and events as it developed electronically with the web.
Evolution of the web
The weekly edition of Stanford Report Online was launched on April 9, 1997. Two years later, it went daily.
"We started posting a new story daily on April 15, 1999," said Elaine Ray, director of campus communications, who was editor of Stanford Report at the time. Eventually, our approach became more organic; we started posting fresh content as it became available."
Over the past 10 years the news website has evolved, and now includes video clips, photo slideshows and related web links. The website is currently being redesigned and a new site will debut later this summer.
"Our goal is for the news website to present the very best of Stanford research and campus life on a daily basis," said Scott Stocker, the university's director of web communications. "In designing the site, we are taking cues from mainstream news organizations that have a strong online presence. We will be adding additional video, slideshows and other multimedia elements to the site which will allow us to take full advantage of the web to tell each story."
The print edition of Stanford Report will cease publication with the June 17 issue. In addition to the redesigned news website, the News Service will launch a daily e-mail newsletter for all faculty and staff in the fall.
Even as the newspaper developed its presence on the web, it continued to publish the weekly print publication. Last week, the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) awarded the paper a bronze medal in its print internal audience tabloids category for the second year in a row. Stanford Report took its category's gold medal in 2002 and 2006. University photographer Linda Cicero won the council's silver and gold medals for photographer of the year in 2002 and 2003, respectively.
"There's a lot of history in the print pages of the Stanford Report, but there also has been a lot of love, creativity and commitment devoted to laying out those pages on production nights, debating word choices in headlines, and story and art placement," said Ray. "The creativity and commitment won't change. It will just be evident in other forms."
Casey Lindberg is a writing intern at the Stanford News Service.