Wednesday, September 19, 2001

TCU Daily Skiff enters 100th year of service to university
By Chrissy Braden
Senior Reporter

Some things that survive 99 years are just old and out-dated.

The TCU Daily Skiff, which begins its 100th year today, may be old, but it continues to inform and challenge its readers, Chancellor Michael Ferrari said.

The Skiff, which was named after a boat, was founded by Ed S. McKinney, a TCU student. McKinney started the paper in 1902 to help him pay his way through school, according to the Skiff Policy Manual. He adopted the slogan, “Rowing, not drifting.”

In 1928, the Skiff was incorporated into the journalism department and is now not only a learning tool for students, but a newspaper for the community, said Doug Newsom, a journalism professor who has been at TCU since 1968.

The chancellor said the newspaper provides a service to the school.

“It has been a consistently strong voice for students at TCU,” he said. “It also has covered issues and concerns of interest and importance to the entire university community.”

But some students disagree with what the Skiff covers and in some cases, what it does not cover.

In fall 1999, Omar Villafranca, a broadcast journalism major, burned copies of the Skiff outside of the library because it did not print an opinion column about the denial of Playboy, according to a Sept. 17, 1999 article of the Skiff. The column stated that if women on campus wanted to pose for Playboy’s “Women of the WAC,” they should be allowed to do so.

While students like Villafranca have sought change through the Skiff, the newspaper has made its own changes.

The Skiff published once a month until 1958, when it began publishing twice a week. In 1971, the newspaper became a daily, publishing four times a week.

Since then, the university newspaper has won several awards including the Associated Press Managing Editors Best Student Newspaper in Texas, the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association Sweepstakes and the All-American Award.

The Skiff has also extended beyond filling the newspaper boxes around campus. It is now published online and has archives from fall 1998, according to the Skiff's Web site (www.skiff.tcu.edu).

Jennifer Engstrand, a senior political science major, said she reads the Skiff on the Internet about once a week.

“It’s quick and easy,” she said. “And I can read (the news from) more than one day at a time.”

In fall 2000, Suzanne Huffman, an associate professor of journalism and head of the broadcast sequence, started Skiff TV, a broadcast news program.

“I wanted to come up with an innovative way where students could broadcast their work,” she said. “I was aware TCU had computer capability to stream video, so I worked with Computer Services to set it up. Now it’s broadcast worldwide.”

Huffman said the program was an example of the Skiff and students keeping up with technology.

Newsom said the Skiff has changed a lot in its 99 years by using color on the pages and becoming a member of The Associated Press.

“It will keep changing,” she said. “But now the changes, for the most part, will be in technology.”

Skiff archives from Sept. 26, 1902 to the present are available for viewing in the special collections department of Mary Couts Burnett Library. The first issue from Sept. 19, 1902, is not on file.

Chrissy Braden
l.c.braden@student.tcu.edu