By Kate Callen
Community college students running an underfunded newspaper in Chula Vista have just taught the nation a lesson about the power of diversity.
The Southwestern Sun of Southwestern Community College has won the Gold Crown award from the Columbia University Scholastic Press Association for being the top collegiate newspaper in North America.
The Sun’s multi-cultural staff are student reporters from working-class and immigrant families. They surpassed peers who attend prestigious universities and grew up in privileged surroundings.
If you badly need a ray of hope in a dark time when journalism and equity are under siege, this might do the trick.
Sun reporters have had plenty of reason to give up. For many, English is a second language. They juggle full courseloads with jobs of 25 hours a week or more to support themselves and their families.
But they are unyielding. “These students do journalism the right way for the right reason,” said Max Branscomb, professor of journalism at Southwestern and a decades-long Sun adviser.
“Ethics is the foundation of everything they do. They work very, very hard. They work nights and weekends.”
Their determination has paid off in a long string of breaking new stories.
In 2023, the Sun revealed that a Southwestern administrator and two friends drove a forklift into a partially demolished campus building to steal an ATM. The incident would have been covered up without their reporting.
Also last year, a Sun reporter learned that after the administration overspent on the Fall 2023 session, it wanted to eliminate the Winter 2023 and Summer 2024 sessions. The resulting coverage forced Southwestern to restore summer classes.
The biggest Sun scoop by far was its reporting on the 2010 South Bay corruption scandal involving bribes to school administrators by builders and architects.
The saga ended with indictments and felony charges – and a slew of awards for the Sun, which has been honored over the years by groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and the Associated Collegiate Press.
On the international front, two bilingual Sun journalists went to Mexico January 20 to interview refugees scheduled for legal asylum processing. They came back with a heartbreaking exclusive.
“They wrote about a woman who had a 9:00 a.m. appointment,” said Branscomb. “She had been waiting months. Then Donald Trump signed an executive order at 12 noon Eastern time, and her appointment was canceled.”
Journalism is a tough profession. Southwestern students lead challenging lives. Branscomb thinks that’s a big reason the Sun staff is so proficient at reporting the news.
“Resiliency is essential for college students and journalists,” he said. “I tell my students, ‘If you whine about an obstacle, people may feel sorry for you, but that won’t help you succeed.’”
Their cultural diversity is a huge asset. “My students speak multiple languages, and they have access to many different cultures. So they know a lot.”
The best evidence of the Sun’s journalistic clout is its roster of alumni who have become accomplished professional reporters. They have included Jennifer Bowman of inewssource, Lindsay Winkley of the Union-Tribune, and Albert Fulcher, President Emeritus of the San Diego Press Club.
We live in a nation where the president is barring reporters from the White House because they won’t obey his edicts.
We live in a city where the mayor was given a “Wall Award” by the news media because he “made it difficult for journalists to do their jobs by ignoring information requests or otherwise compromising the public’s right to know.”
Is that horrendous? Yes. But if we whine about it, that won’t help us prevail.
“Everyone paints a scenario where journalism is in its death rattle,” said Branscomb. “It’s not. I’ve sent hundreds of students into the media, and they just keep coming.”
