Editor-in-Chief Jasper Smith, left, leads the last editorial meeting of the fall 2023 semester at The Hilltop, the nation’s oldest Black student newspaper. Student-run publications at Historically Black Colleges and Universities are struggling, but Smith and her peers are working to sustain their newsrooms.
The Black student press is struggling.
Wesley Wright, executive director of the ReNews Project, has been tracking the health of student newspapers at Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Hispanic-Serving Institutions.
Of more than 100 HBCUs in the country, he said, “there are probably five or six schools that have really good student media year in and year out. Then, you’ll notice, there’s a big drop-off.”
This audio project, Still Printing: The Black Student Press at 100, follows a year in the life of student journalists at the nation’s oldest Black collegiate newspaper: The Hilltop at Howard University in Washington, D.C.
In a tumultuous year marked by the rise of anti-DEI laws across the U.S. and crackdowns on student protesters at colleges nationwide, editor-in-chief Jasper Smith and managing editor N’Dia Webb steered The Hilltop through its centennial year.
They faced readers angry at their coverage of the deadliest Gaza conflict in a generation, challenges to their authority from within the newsroom as young Black women in leadership, and illustrious alumni persistently angling to snag some of the few coveted tickets to The Hilltop’s centennial gala at the National Press Club.
Their story is one of strength through adversity, told by the students in interviews and personal diaries. It unfolds against a broader landscape shaped by student press advocates like Wright and Jackie Alexander, then president of College Media Association. In the newsroom, The Hilltop’s adviser, Keith Alexander — a Pulitzer Prize-winning crime and courts reporter who spent most of his career at The Washington Post — works directly with the students.
Even with support, however, the journey for HBCU journalists is not an easy one. Anti-DEI measures continue to proliferate. Newspapers like The Washington Post are facing massive job cuts. The survival of Black student newspapers is anything but certain.
But, if there is hope, it might be found at The Hilltop.
Photos by Chris Evans, Rice University