2008 Woodie Awards
CampusJ.com -- J is for Jewish
Sam Blass
Issue date: 4/18/05 Section: Features
- Page 1 of 2 next >
According to the web log's creator, editor and publisher, Steven I. Weiss, CampusJ.com boasts a readership of several hundred people in just its first month of existence. CampusJ, whose goal is to "provide comprehensive coverage of Jewish news on campus, as well as training and opportunities to a new generation of Jewish journalists," enlists students to cover events at several different colleges across the country, including Yeshiva.
CampusJ works through a network of bloggers. A blog, short for web log, is an expanding journal of thoughts published online. CampusJ's bloggers report on Jewish events at different college campuses and post them at campusj.com for others to read. Readers can comment on the blog and others can respond, resulting in an informed dialogue involving the very students it affects. Each college maintains its own section and a home blog streamlines items of interest from all of the colleges. The result is a conglomerate of blogs that provide up-to-date news coverage of college campuses.
CampusJ was created because Weiss saw the need for coverage of events that is "dynamic, interactive, immediate and accurate. Most campus newspapers are focused on the general university community; we've got a highly-specified beat that can't survive as its own publication at most schools." This is what separates the website from a college newspaper. The drawback of college newspapers, Weiss opines, is that the news sections can be "static, sporadic, and outdated." A blog minimizes the gap between news and its publication.
Some contend that a visit to CampusJ helps a reader identify the real issues prevailing at college campuses. For example, Stern College for Women (SCW) blogger Tova Stulman has been covering the fallout from a controversial opionions piece by Menachem Wecker, The Commentator's Editor at Large. Any visitor can enter the fray with his/her own thoughts, and under a creative alias if so desired. CampusJ's forum for discussion is much broader and more inclusive than other media outlets, and dialogues are held about topics ranging from metzizah be'peh (oral suction performed during a circumcision) to basketball tournaments.
CampusJ works through a network of bloggers. A blog, short for web log, is an expanding journal of thoughts published online. CampusJ's bloggers report on Jewish events at different college campuses and post them at campusj.com for others to read. Readers can comment on the blog and others can respond, resulting in an informed dialogue involving the very students it affects. Each college maintains its own section and a home blog streamlines items of interest from all of the colleges. The result is a conglomerate of blogs that provide up-to-date news coverage of college campuses.
CampusJ was created because Weiss saw the need for coverage of events that is "dynamic, interactive, immediate and accurate. Most campus newspapers are focused on the general university community; we've got a highly-specified beat that can't survive as its own publication at most schools." This is what separates the website from a college newspaper. The drawback of college newspapers, Weiss opines, is that the news sections can be "static, sporadic, and outdated." A blog minimizes the gap between news and its publication.
Some contend that a visit to CampusJ helps a reader identify the real issues prevailing at college campuses. For example, Stern College for Women (SCW) blogger Tova Stulman has been covering the fallout from a controversial opionions piece by Menachem Wecker, The Commentator's Editor at Large. Any visitor can enter the fray with his/her own thoughts, and under a creative alias if so desired. CampusJ's forum for discussion is much broader and more inclusive than other media outlets, and dialogues are held about topics ranging from metzizah be'peh (oral suction performed during a circumcision) to basketball tournaments.