The Monitor is as much like a commercial newspaper as we can make it, within the academic framework. Editors assign stories to reporters and photographers. Page editors place the stories and write the headlines. Advertising sales workers contact business owners and design the ads. When the issue comes out, the staff takes the credit, or the blame.
Students learn to balance the value of individual initiative and the value of teamwork.
Editors depend on writers to turn in their stories on time, but writers depend on their own skills to get the facts straight. In the end, each issue of the Monitor is a group effort and an individual effort. Students learn the necessity of planning, get many forms of feedback on their work, and walk away with real-life experience in an attractive field of employment. Interviewing and news-gathering techniques are covered, along with ethics and libel. Students learn to write by writing a lot.