Save the Central Florida Future

The Central Florida Future becomes a relic Aug. 4.

The student newspaper of the University of Central Florida will stop publishing after a 48-year run. I mourn the loss of what was the single biggest influence on my journalism career.

Why would the University of Central Florida shut down its school paper? It didn’t. In the early ’90s, UCF considered banning skateboards and bikes on campus. The Central Florida Future published an editorial depicting President John Hitt with a Hitler mustache. Hitt’s response was to evict the paper from its rent-free space on campus.

The newspaper remained independent until 2008, when Gannett — eyeing a built-in demographic of 18- to 25-year-old students — bought the Central Florida Future. And it’s Gannett, with profits in mind, that is shutting the paper down.

As a community, we can lament the passing of yet another award-winning news organization. Or we can save the Future — and make it better in the process. I’m calling on Gannett to donate the Central Florida Future’s Abe Aboraya is a UCF alumnus, and former opinions editor, news editor and editorin-chief of the Central Florida Future. He currently covers health care for WMFE, the NPR affiliate in Orlando. name, and just as important, the stewardship of its archive to a nonprofit entity.

This nonprofit would not just hold the name and history of the school newspaper, but bring it back. The new Central Florida Future should be controlled by a board of directors representing students, UCF and professional journalists.

And under a nonprofit business model, two of the big pitfalls of the Central Florida Future can be remedied. If the Future is an independent organization from the University of Central Florida, it will be free to hold UCF officials accountable, and would be free to stumble along the way. As we learned in 1994, it’s hard to bite the hand that feeds. It’s even harder to paint a Hitler mustache on its president’s face and expect to keep getting a rent check.

And with a nonprofit model, student journalists wouldn’t feel exploited for the profits of private owners. The organization and the mission benefit, which inherently benefits the student journalist.

Journalism is changing rapidly. I don’t want to write yet another eulogy for yet another newspaper I love folding. Maybe this is the time we all do something about it. Or maybe this is how the industry dies: slowly, starving, while we all watch. And without a true and vibrant journalism industry, the news will come straight from the source, unchecked, unvetted and along party lines.

I refuse to end this piece on a down note. Not about the Future, and not about the future of our industry. I leave you with what I believe should be the mission statement of the new Central Florida Future.

The mission of the Central Florida Future is to give the students of the University of Central Florida a voice; to hold accountable those who hold sway over those students; to train the next generation of journalists that will serve as a check on all three branches of government; to give student journalists the experience needed to start a journalism career, now and in the future, no matter the medium.