The Daily Universe celebrates 50 years

Over the next five weeks, the Universe will publish commemora-tive sections on Tuesdays, each one looking back at a decade of BYU history as seen through the eyes of the paper.

“We ought to pause for just a few issues and look at what 50 years of the role the Universe has played,” said Ed Adams, chair of the Depart-ment of Communications. “I’m not sure as students, staff or faculty we really think about it.”

Adams said The Daily Universe is easy to take for granted.

“You just go to classes every day walking around expecting it to be there, not thinking about the role it plays on campus or the work that goes into it,” he said.

The paper plays an integral role in the BYU community, Adams said.

“I thought it’d be important just to pause and reflect and look back at what kind of role it has played, the coverage it has done and what it’s provided for the campus,” he said.

“Newspaper helps round out the sense of community,” he said. “In the absence of a town hall meeting or public debate, it gives the opportunity for everybody to have voice.”

Ed Carter, communications pro-fessor who has studied the affect of newspaper in communities, said he thinks this series of commemorative issues will contribute to exploring the question of what role journalism plays in society, particularly the soci-ety existing on BYU campus.

Looking at the framers of the Constitution and what they saw jour-nalism and newspapers doing, Carter said ideaal journalism would do sev-eral things: provide a check on gov-ernment, facilitate democracy and allow for a wide expression of views. In short, it would enable the search for truth.

“Certainly in the last 50 years, since we’ve had the daily edition of the Universe, the newspaper’s been witness to a lot of important events, has allowed students to explore im-portant issues,” Carter said.

Another important development coming out of this series, Carter said, allows the community to help define what the newspaper should be. He sees this as an opportunity to engage in a discussion on how the newspaper might do a better job of serving read-ers and connecting with them.

“Hopefully this will spark some of that discussion and people will respond to it, look at the historical roots and say ‘here’s where we’ve been, here’s where we are now, where would we like to be in the future?’” Carter said.

Copyright Brigham Young University 9 Nov 2005