Campus newspaper gives students a voice
It’s no secret that print newspapers are an endangered species.
Cities as large as Pittsburgh and Atlanta are without printed daily newspapers, as media companies shift to digital, reduce their print schedule, or close entirely.
For colleges and universities, it’s more of the same. In the past four years, the state flagship universities of Maine, Missouri, and Oklahoma have shifted their student newspapers from print to online-only editions.
At EMU, the ink and newsprint are still very much alive. Every two weeks during the school year, a dynamic team of writers, editors, designers, and photographers works to put together and publish The Weather Vane. The student-run print newspaper, which averages 12 pages of stories and color photos per issue, captures the buzz on campus through reporting and perspectives on campus policies, cultural trends, and national politics.
The half-broadsheet (a term referring to the paper’s physical size) prints 14 issues each academic year and is in its 72nd volume. Read about the history of EMU’s student newspaper, from its first issue as the mimeographed “Purple Press” in 1939 to its merger with The Journal in 1956, in this EMU News article from 2016.
A paper of record
This semester, juniors Caleb Metzler and Alex Belisle serve as the paper’s co-editors-in-chief. They lead a mix of work-study, practicum, and volunteer student staffers.
It’s a new experience for Belisle. The biology and political science major from Newport News, Virginia, is in his first semester in the post. He’s recently been reading articles from old Weather Vane issues and says it’s exciting to think about how their stories might be viewed years into the future.
“It gives a view into what students from a certain time were thinking and what the attitudes were from that time,” said Belisle. “I think we underestimate how much norms can change.”
For example, he said, one article he read in an archived issue of The Weather Vane quoted a student predicting that the United States would elect a Black president before electing a Catholic one.
“There’s definitely going to be a story in this issue or the next one that isn’t super interesting to us,” he said, “but in four years it’ll be like, Oh, why were they thinking that at the time? That’s so weird.”
For Metzler, the role is a familiar one. The York, Pennsylvania, native, who is majoring in political science, sociology, and Spanish, is in his third semester leading the paper. He joined as a staff writer during his first year at EMU, where he “wrote a lot of stories and learned a lot of lessons,” he said.
“You have to be a team player,” said Metzler, sharing one of those lessons. “If you don’t do your work, everybody else is going to be scrambling to pick up after you, and that’s not fun.”
Metzler said they’ve been free to express their opinions without fear of censorship from the administration. “Shannon,” he said, referring to Interim President Rev. Dr. Shannon W. Dycus, “has been very supportive of what we do.”
Sitara Hackney, managing editor for The Weather Vane, agreed. “We try and encourage people to express themselves as they want,” said Hackney, a junior history and education major in her sixth semester with the paper. “As copy editors, part of our job is changing what people write, but it’s still their names getting printed with their articles.”
From plan to print
It’s just past 5:30 p.m. on a Wednesday in January when Metzler and Belisle call the production night meeting, their first of the spring 2026 semester, to order. They stand in front of a whiteboard in the basement lounge of Maplewood Residence Hall, dry erase markers in hand.
“What is everybody interested in writing about?” Metzler asks the group of 10 students.
Staff Writer Samuel Castaneda calls out an idea for an opinion piece: “Having an 8 a.m. virtual class on a snow day is not something that should happen.”
Another student pitches a story on the hazing training required for all EMU employees. “Maybe there’s a story there,” ponders Metzler. “What’s EMU’s history with hazing?”
After his older brother, Campus Life Editor and champion chili eater Micah Wenger, suggests getting tickets to see a one-woman show, Sell Me: I am from North Korea, at James Madison University’s Forbes Center for the Performing Arts, first-year student and Opinion Editor Reuben Wenger agrees to review it for the paper.
There’s almost always space in the paper for the word search, sudoku, and maze puzzles contributed by Copy Editor Ethan Kanagy. It’s typically among the most popular sections of The Weather Vane, says Belisle.
“I’ve seen people in the caf doing the puzzles,” he says.
“We hear complaints when there aren’t any puzzles,” Metzler chimes in.
After collecting story ideas for the issue coming out in two weeks, the co-editors-in-chief lead their team of staffers into the Weather Vane newsroom to put together the next day’s paper. Fueled by camaraderie and slices of Marco’s Pizza, the students work through the night editing and designing pages until the paper is put to bed (meaning it’s finished and ready to print). On Thursday morning, the newspaper will be printed at a site about 40 minutes away and delivered to campus later that afternoon.
Despite the pitches they hear at the planning meeting, one unexpected event ends up dominating the front page. Four nights later, a burst of extremely cold weather causes a sprinkler malfunction inside one of the residence halls. It isn’t until 2 a.m. that the issue finally comes together.
For more information about The Weather Vane, contact faculty advisor Mary Ann Zehr at maryann.zehr@emu.edu or the student editors at wvane@emu.edu.
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