Journalism is an important facet of everyone’s life. It keeps you current on what’s happening in the world and separates fact from fiction, yet it seems lately schools have been cutting journalism programs.

You might or might not have heard the journalism department at CSM was decimated. In fact, the instructor of these classes apparently found out through a student instead of being contacted by the school itself. We recently learned the San Jose City College journalism department is fighting to keep afloat as well.

We at The Skyline View would like to say one thing and pardon our french but this is a load of bull. Student papers aren’t just important learning tools for those of us who aspire to be journalists, but serve as a method for us to foster a community within our college. We pursue student interests and ask questions that the student body wants to know but may not know how to put to words.

We believe that CSM and SJCC should have their journalism programs reinstated immediately. Putting a newspaper together as a club is a completely unrealistic expectation; It really takes not only a class but a dedicated teacher who loves what they do to show the way. We know from experience just how much work goes into making a student newspaper. We’re not only paying for a three unit class, but we’re doing far more than 3 units’ worth of work.

It’s aggrevating that their schools feel the programs are so unimportant that they can just cut it down to bare bones and expect a club to put out the paper. We feel very fortunate that many people we’ve interacted with on campus for the most part appreciate us. We really do care about interacting with our college, and from our extensive experience with other schools through the Journalism Association of Community Colleges we know we’re not the only ones.

Can you imagine a world without journalists? Without a trusted source of information you wouldn’t know if what you were reading was true or not. There have been times where we’ve heard rumors around campus and investigated them only to find out that they were just rumors and we’d tell our readers that through social media or even in person if we overheard it. Would you really want to go to a school where you couldn’t tell if a rumor was real or not?

That’s why it’s important for CSM and SJCC to have their journalism programs reinstated. We may have a rivalry going on with other journalism programs because of the job market and JACC but the last thing we’d want is one of our competitors to be a victim of what we’d consider a bad decision on the part of their school’s management.

We ask you to stand with us in supporting the staff of the San Matean and the City College Times in their fight to get their programs back. SJCC needs to reach a certain amount of students enrolled to be saved according to the City College Times‘ twitter feed. The San Matean has a petition going on change.org which can be viewed at: chn.ge/OwjI38