Mary Dillon listens to Hale Caffery '19 talk about working on The Stump newspaper
Students Revive School Newspaper
Second issue of The Stump will publish next week
Teenagers keeping alive the tradition of printed newspapers? This is not a case of "fake news" at Christ School.
Hours of reporting, photography, editing, and design have gone into The Stump, which will publish during Asheville School Week. It is only the second edition of the student newspaper since it was revived last spring. Coles Manning '19 came up with the idea and name for The Stump.
Coles has had lots of help this semester from the rest of Mary Dillon's Honors Journalism class: David Shainberg '18, Zack Grella '19, Will McNichols '19, Hale Caffery '19, William Dodenhoff '19, and Hunter Tarves '19. None of the boys say they have aspirations of a professional career in journalism. But their goal with The Stump is to share news that cannot be found anywhere else and report with a tone that is palatable to the student body.
"The last school I was at has had a paper since 1885," Coles said. "It really inspired me to build up a tradition here. Especially thinking that I'll want everyone to remember specific dates, specific things."
Approximately 250 copies of The Stump will be printed and made available around campus. Moving forward, Dillon said her students may dabble in podcasting or videos.
"I remember being excited when I heard were going to have a school paper," David said. "A lot of people were interested to see what their peers had written. And I think that will continue to be true. I've always been a big fan of the news, and this has been a great opportunity to learn more about what journalism means and how information gets translated. The work we do is very truthful, a lot of fact-checking goes into it, and we get to go into the archives and learn more about the history of the school."
Christ School formerly put out a student paper, The Galax Leaf, that ceased publication in 2010. Dillon was connected to that project as well. And while she was happy to see Coles want to reinstitute a school news outlet, Dillon was leery of the format at first.
"'Print journalism is dead' is what I told Coles," Dillon said. "Why did we need a school paper? He argued that it was important to have for archiving purposes. What really sold me though was the name."
Of course, the word "stump" has a unique conotation at Christ School. Traditionally, a boy who has violated a major rule has been assigned a grueling way of making amends. He spends up to five weeks trying to remove a tree stump from the ground with a pick axe, felling axe, and shovel.
