Services
Newswire
Five days a week during the academic term, the CUP national bureau chief (NBC) selects and edits stories for distribution on the news wire, available for publication to all members through cup.ca. Membership entitles your newspaper to run any story from the wire.
The wire is invaluable when you need something to fill an unexpected hole in your pages. But it's also much more: CUP copy can be used to complement original content, adding national perspective for your readers; it's a great starting point for research and story ideas, even news briefs and sidebars. By uploading to the wire, your paper's writers will have the opportunity to gain exposure by being published across the country. When they are, the CUP national office will send you clippings of your work used in other papers which is great for portfolios.
The wire gets noticed! Your stories will get recognition not only on other campuses, but from professional journalists and politicians who subscribe to the wire. Current wire subscribers include Maclean's magazine, The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, and education reporters as well as universities.
You may have the opportunity to have your story published in a variety of professional publications, such as the Tyee in B.C, which features "the best of campus press" every week.
For more information about the wire and how your paper can benefit, contact the National Bureau Chief at national@cup.ca
Hot Ink
CUP's newest service is the Hot Ink content management system. Developed specifically for student newspapers by CUP and Campus Plus, Hot Ink is designed to allow any student newspaper to create and maintain a professional and dynamic website.
For more information on Hot Ink, check out HotInk.net.
Conferences
CUP hosts regional conferences and events throughout the year to allow our members to interact with one another and learn from some of the greatest minds in journalism today.
Every January, we also host our annual national conference (affectionately referred to as "NASH"). This 5-day long conference features seminars, speakers, workshops, and keynotes from across Canada and culminates in our annual general meeting where all CUP members are encouraged to come and have their say on all things CUP.
For more information on conferences, check out the conferences page.
Legal Advice
CUP retains a lawyer to provide emergency legal advice for libel threats against member papers. Carlos Martins, one of Canada's top media lawyers, and the lawyers at Bersenas Jacobsen Chouest Thomson Blackburn, LLP have been advising CUP newspapers for over a decade on a wide variety of legal issues that both CUP and its member newspapers have encountered.
Their services range from providing advice on funding disputes between newspapers and their respective student unions and drafting commercial agreements to a full range of litigation/media law services including advising on obscenity laws and publication bans, vetting sensitive stories before publication and responding to lawsuits (threatened and actual). Carlos is a frequent speaker at the CUP Summer School and the CUP National Conference. His media clients include The Globe and Mail, CTV and Random House.
CUP can offer support for many other legal issues including human resources, constitutions and governance, student union and university administration mediation, autonomy agreements, copyright law, incorporation, human rights law, the Quebec Civil Code, insurance issues, and more! CUP not only provides detailed resources on everything pertaining to student journalism, but also offers the collective experience of CUP's extensive network of student publications.
For instance, when the Cadre at University of Prince Edward Island published the highly controversial Danish Mohammed cartoons last spring, CUP national office consulted with Martins to offer CUP members a professional opinion about the legality of publishing the cartoons. As a result, CUP members were able to make an educated decision about the cartoons at their individual papers; the Cadre got support in the aftermath of its decision, and Canadian student journalism had a voice on the issue. CUP members from across the country were even interviewed in a CBC special on the National.
Resources
The CUP resources were first developed in 1977, updated again in 1992, in 1999, and again in 2006-2007. Contributors include current CUPpies and CUP alumni from years past, encompassing more than thirty years of CUP experience. It is the most exhaustive resource existing in Canada for information on how to run a student newspaper. They provide tips and tricks without dictating style. They are as easily read by first year volunteers as they are useful to fifth year veterans.
With articles on everything from how to write a lede to guides on how to get your paper autonomous, you will find this book useful every day at your office. Each article of the book functions individually as a handout, so they can be handed out to each new volunteer at your office. Members receive the book as a hard copy, and also have access to PDFs of each article online.
CUP member? » Log in to read the CUP Press Manual
CUP also supports additional resource initiatives. In 2007 we distributed copies of "Requires Assembley," a book about how to design a great looking student newspaper, to every newspaper in attendance at the CUP69 National Conference. Mike Barker, the author of the book, was CUP Ontario Board Rep in 2005-06, and has worked for both the Peak and the Dialog.
John H. McDonald Awards for Excellence in Student Journalism
The Johnnies are a series of student journalism awards originally launched in 2003.
These awards were envisioned to be similar in character to the National Newspaper Awards, started by the Toronto Press Club in 1949, and aspire to become as recognizable and prestigious. While there are various prizes for student journalists across the country, there currently exists no nationally known awards program to encourage excellence in journalism and newspaper design. The awards exist to celebrate and reward the excellence that can be found in so many publications at universities and colleges across the country.
The awards are open to any students whose work has been published in a student publication at post-secondary institutions in Canada.
One winner from each category will be awarded $500. There will be two honourable mentions in each category. Shortlists will be released in December and the winner will be announced at the CUP National Conference during the JHM Gala.
Additionally, winners' names will be added to a plaque that will be stored in the CUP head office and brought to each annual conference for showcasing.
For more information, visit the JHM page.
Mentorship Program
The Mentorship program aims to connect ambitious student journalists with media professionals. The primary goal of the program is to help student journalists by providing them with a professional contact to talk to about improving their skill set, tips and tricks of the trade, professional journalism, the job market.
Mentors and students will be matched by their location, providing students with the opportunity to meet with their mentors in person several times over the course of a year in addition to more regular email and phone contact.
The number of student / mentor pairs chosen will depend on the quality of applicants and ability of CUP to effectively pair mentors with students. If an especially keen student does not match a mentor already signed up with the program, the coordinator will do their best to find a good match.
Specialty wires
CUP also produces weekly exchanges for arts, features, sports, opinions, graphics, photos and copy from Francophone Canada. Each specialty wire has its own specialty bureau chief charged with selecting the best section-specific articles from CUP papers, and publishing them on the wire - including important student stories from French-speaking Canada translated by the French Bureau Chief.
Each bureau chief acts as a resource for writers across Canada, editing and selecting members' copy for the wire, and filling member requests for coverage. Is your school's football team playing in the Vanier Cup while you're stuck at home shooting the school logo with your camera? Call the sports bureau chief, and get those away games covered!
The bureau chiefs try to get you as much coverage as is within their enormous reach by contacting local papers and writing stories themselves. Just ask, and what you need will be covered, from interviews to photographs and everything in between.
Network of bureau chiefs
CUP maintains a network of bureau chiefs in Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia, as well as an Ottawa bureau chief working out of the press gallery on Parliament Hill. The expertise of these bureaus is accessible to all CUP members, as are all the stories they file. Wherever possible, CUP staff will provide seminars to assist the staff of member papers.
When you want a story covered anywhere in Canada, or you want access to a politician or a band you just can't get alone, your friendly neighborhood bureau chief will be more than happy to cover it or to help you get the resources together to cover it yourself. They're just a phone call or an e-mail away! For instance, the Capilano Courier, in British Columbia, was out of town in January 2005 when a professor was killed in a North Vancouver mudslide, but they were able to assign coverage to the Western Bureau Chief, ensuring that they did not miss out on this crucial story.
Communication Network
The CUP listserv allows members and staff to reach the whole of membership with questions and concerns, while forums on the CUP website provide space for discussion. For regional and specialty discussion, members also have access to specialized forums and listservs including diversity and bilingualism, as well as those for CUP's special-issues caucuses: colour, disability, queer, francophone and women's.
These discussions include everything from dealing with your students' union to story ideas and debate on the future of journalism. Job opportunities and internships are posted on the forums for CUPpies seeking professional experience.
These networks allow you to keep in touch with those in your region with regional listservs, as well as CUP at large.
CUP Staff: A support network
One of CUP's most important functions is lending a hand to newspapers in trouble. A paper that needs it can expect advice and support from CUP as well as other student papers across the country. Members continually turn to listservs and forums to find out if they should use Quark or InDesign, to ask for advice on choosing a printer, or whatever is on their mind in times of stress, confusion, or plain old journalistic curiosity.
In 2005, CUP helped The Fulcrum from the University of Ottawa in their successful bid to gain autonomy. The Fulcrum had attempted this move several times since the '70s, with very little success. But this time around, CUP was there to help at every turn, finding them a lawyer and driving up to Ottawa to speak to the University of Ottawa's student federation.
"In my opinion our student federation would not have voted in favour of either our autonomy or our autonomy agreement if the CUP national bureau chief and CUP president had not have driven up from Toronto to be at the meeting and speak to the student federation board members in person."
- Mary Cummins, Editor-in-Chief of The Fulcrum (2004-05)
CUP supported The Fulcrum through the entire process, right up to June 1, 2005, when the final copy of the agreement of autonomy was signed and The Fulcrum officially became autonomous. This is just one of the many examples of how CUP's knowledge and dedication have helped make a difference in strengthening the student press.
