Alex Lynch doesn't have the naivete you'd expect to find in a journalism student.
Lynch knows that media conglomerates suck, that powerful newspapers sometimes promote private rather than public interests and that ticker symbols have become more influential than bleached pulp.
So he's challenging fellow students at the University of South Florida to question an imperfect world during a contentious time for the university.
Lynch, 26, is the founder and editor of The Shanachie (Scots Gaelic for storyteller, pronounced sha-ne-kee), a left-leaning independent newspaper with a self-directed charge to serve as an alternative to The Oracle, the university-funded, historically benign student newspaper.
The Shanachie, a biweekly, distributes 3,000 copies throughout the Tampa and St. Petersburg campuses of USF.
"We wanted to be a way for students to question the status quo," said Lynch, who founded The Shanachie last Sept. 26, the day of USF computer science professor Sami Al-Arian's deer-in-the-headlights appearance on Fox News Channel's The O'Reilly Factor.
In the first issue of his newspaper, Lynch, who also publishes under the penname Eamon Loingsigh, wrote: "There has always been a necessity in a functioning society for revolutionary thought and this is just the type of forum, we believe, many students crave."
The Shanachie has advocated for Mazen Al-Najjar's release from federal prison, Al-Arian's return to the classroom from university suspension and health insurance for graduate teaching assistants. Additionally, the newspaper's op-ed pages have offered a voice to the voiceless — most notably Muslim women in a post-Sept. 11 America, where fear and ignorance has fueled hatred.
"They are humanists and activists who value the great values and traditions of this country. I commend them for their courage," Al-Arian said of Lynch and the other student journalists behind The Shanachie. "They have been fighting a battle very few people are willing to fight — and at a personal sacrifice."
And a financial one too. Lynch started the newspaper with $300 out of pocket and found no help from the university. His applications for student activity money were denied, including a last-ditch effort in which Lynch claimed The Shanachie was a newsletter for the campus chapter of the Green Party.
But aid came from unlikely allies. Professors from departments as varied as political science and biology chipped in a few dollars here and there to keep The Shanachie alive.
Since Gov. Jeb Bush's dismantling of the state Board of Regents and the suspension of Al-Arian, professors have had a strained relationship with USF President Judy Genshaft, whom many consider a glorified tool for the gubernatorially appointed trustees who now oversee the university.
"The best help came from the professors," said Lynch. "They're tired of the consolidation of news opinion."
That consolidation includes opinion from The Oracle, which Lynch alleges has toed the administration's line throughout the Al-Arian controversy. The Oracle was "waving flags everywhere and manufacturing consent," said Lynch. "Students were not getting the other side of the story."
Political science professor Harry E. Vanden agrees with Lynch's assertion that The Oracle offered one-sided coverage of Al-Arian's suspension. "It's a different voice, a new voice," Vanden said of The Shanachie.
But Rick Wilbur, a journalism professor who formerly advised The Oracle, doesn't think students and faculty should be so critical of the campus daily. The paper has garnered state and national recognition for excellence, including the 1990 Best College Daily in the Nation Award from the Society of Professional Journalists.
The Oracle sees itself as "the town daily newspaper and the town is USF," said Wilbur. "That means The Oracle's job is to be the mainstream paper for USF. … That certainly leaves open the opportunity for alternative newspapers to find an audience. I think The Shanachie certainly found an audience."
Jay Lawrence, The Oracle's current faculty adviser, says the newspaper in no way serves as a mouthpiece for the administration.
Lynch, however, points to the umbilical cord connecting the newsroom to the university. Student fees cover 15 percent to 20 percent of The Oracle's operating budget, financially tying the newspaper to the university it is supposed to report on.
That's about to change, but not because The Oracle begged for independence.
USF's fiscally conservative student government, led by Senate President Mike Berman and student government President Mike Griffin, has passed legislation designed to wean The Oracle off university money by 2005. The newspaper will receive $159,000 in 2002, $106,000 in 2003 and $53,000 in 2004. It will continue to receive free office space on the Tampa campus.
"It'd be like the federal government giving money to the Washington Post," Griffin said of student funds going to The Oracle. "It gives the perception that there could be a conflict of interest."
An autonomous student newspaper is not a novel idea. The University of Florida's student newspaper, The Independent Florida Alligator, split from the university to avoid meddling from the administration.
Will independence from USF help The Oracle?
Coupled with rib-poking from The Shanachie, Al-Arian thinks so. "Whenever you have a force that is challenging, the stronger the force the more The Oracle will move," he said, implying that a leftist Shanachie will pull The Oracle toward the political center.
Wilbur, who views The Oracle as the university's newspaper of record, agrees that The Shanachie will make the established campus daily a better publication.
"If you don't feel you have a voice, you can just create a voice in this country. That's what The Shanachie did," said Wilbur. "It's an alternative to The Oracle in the same way the Planet is an alternative to the Times and the Trib."
The Shanachie's critics will call the newspaper a rag for the extreme left. But Lynch, who believes conservatism has become the mainstream thanks to a complacent media, is ready to combat the criticism.
"People call me a newspaper radical," said Lynch. "But to me, George W. Bush is a radical. John Ashcroft is a radical. Judy Genshaft is a radical."
Contact Staff Writer Trevor Aaronson, the frightening product of a USF education, at 813-248-8888, ext. 134, or e-mail him at trevor.aaronson@weeklyplanet.com.
This article appears in Aug 21-27, 2002.