When one thinks of student news organizations at Ithaca College and Cornell University one thinks of the Ithacan and the Cornell Daily Sun respectively. But what many students who eagerly await the new issues of the papers every Thursday morning don’t realize is that there is a whole other world of anti-establishment student publications out there. These underground publications allow those who are experiencing college life in Ithaca to tell the news and share their views more creatively than the age-old bastions of student news that have been in place for decades. For my final Ithaculture post of the semester (sheds tear), I’ve brought you all a list of alternative student news publications to check out:
1. Imprint Magazine – Imprint is an up-and-coming online zine that has its e-board based at Ithaca College, but has staffers everywhere from Kansas to Florida. Imprint is where you need to go if you want pop culture and world events from the perspective of witty college students with lots of opinion and snappy prose styles.
2. Kitsch Magazine – Kitsch, based at Cornell University but with a burgeoning IC contingency, is a good old-fashioned glossy magazine that comes out once per semester. But the content is certainly not old-fashioned. Kitsch features prose, poetry, local stories and big ticket news items, all told by IC and Cornell kids with a knack for telling the news in an expressive and artistic fashion.
3. Buzzsaw Haircut – Buzzsaw is an Ithaca College-based alternative magazine that prides itself on its alternative-ness. It covers the kookier aspects of Ithaca College and the town of Ithaca (of which we know there’s no shortage) with playful writing and gorgeous artwork. They put out can issue every month, and never fail to inform their readers and tickle their funny-bones simultaneously.
4. 360 Degrees Magazine – 360 Degrees is a new magazine, done by Ithaca College students. The idea of the magazine is to tell stories from every angle, therefore, 360 degrees. The magazine is incredibly appealing, as each story is told from a highly personal point of view that is rarely seen in traditional news publications, and is especially never seen in the seemingly instant news of today.
5. Cake – Cake is another new magazine, put out by music enthusiasts at Ithaca College. In spite of its small budget, Cake delivers all that’s awesome in the world of independent music on a monthly basis without fail. In addition, Cake brings acts that they find buzzworthy to the Ithaca College campus.
I decided to cover independent alternative student media for my final Ithaculture post because I’m afraid that the art of creative news storytelling is dying. In this age, as previously mentioned, in which a demanding, on-the-go public needs its news now. To make a long story short, the world needs more new journalists like Tom Wolfe, because there is no better way (in my humble opinion) to commemorate incredible events on the world’s stage (or in this case, on the somewhat smaller stage of Ithaca, NY) than with a creative and beautifully-written story.
It’s been a great semester, and a great time gallivanting around Ithaca finding subjects for this blog every week. I’ll sorely miss feeling the Fringe Benefits on a weekly basis. Thanks for reading!
Shu-no heiwa (peace be with you, in Japanese),
Norah
