By Kenney Kost/editor-in-chief
Twenty-five years ago, Tarrant County Junior College decided to combine its news community into one newspaper. The Collegian’s first issue ran Aug. 29, 1988.
Herman Crow was president of NE Campus at the time and began pushing to combine the efforts of each campus’ newspaper. NE director of student publications Joe Norton, who advised the North East Weekly Student, was tasked with planning the project.
“I was given the assignment to plan and coordinate,” Norton said. “That was the part I played.”
The idea was met with resistance because of fears regarding fair coverage on each campus and pride in their newspapers.
“Each campus had an award-winning newspaper, and they were proud of them,” he said. “Some people even went before the board to try and stop it. They felt NE was going to get the bulk of the coverage.”
Despite the negative reactions and resistance, Norton said he and journalism instructor Diane Turner, who had advised the South Campus Reflector, pushed forward with the project and continued to see that it could work and benefit the district.
“At first, I wasn’t pushing for it,” he said. “But as we continued working together on it, we realized it was a perfect fit with our multi-campus, one-district college concept. I feel it gave us the opportunity to combine our efforts and our budget, which allowed us to do more.”
As the ball got rolling, the resistance slowly subsided. Norton said he knew words would not convince the naysayers. It was going to have to be the product that spoke for itself.
“Anytime there is drastic change, there is going to be resistance, and this was no exception,” he said. “We were going to have to show people that we were going to give fair and equal coverage. And in the end, I really think we exceeded expectations. We created a quality newspaper, and it has continued to consistently deliver the same quality.”
