Student Media

Student Media. . Ever since USC was founded, its students have sought ways to have their say. The earliest student publication, The College Review, dates back to 1884, only four years after USC was established. A slim monthly magazine, it lasted only the spring semester and was succeeded in 1891 by El Rodeo, not the precursor of today’s yearbook, but a magazine. , “We have broken our shell and sprung into the active life of journalism,” the year-end issue declared, announcing that it would become a monthly the following term. Instead, a four-page student newspaper called The Rostrum debuted, offering an eclectic mix of news, features, editorials and advertisements. , Publication of student magazines and newspapers remained unpredictable over the next few decades, primarily because they depended heavily on subscriptions and advertising. The Record, which first appeared in 1895, was followed in 1902 by The Cardinal, which lasted three issues. The following year, USC’s new president, George Finley Bovard, lent his support to a new student paper, The University Advocate, which was replaced in 1905 by the weekly University Courier. The Daily Southern Californian, first published in September 1912, underwent a series of name changes, becoming the Southern California Trojan in 1915, the Southern California Daily Trojan in 1928, and the Daily Trojan in 1943, the name that stuck. , USC’s first yearbook, a modest publication called The Sibyl, appeared in 1889, but it wasn’t until 1908 that yearbooks started to be published with any regularity. In the interim, the first edition of El Rodeo was produced. , Counterbalancing the serious student publications was the campus humor magazine, Wampus, which served as a creative outlet for campus wags for nearly 40 years. Like the student newspapers, Wampus was a training ground for a number of prominent professionals, including producers David L. Wolper and Jack Warner, newspaper executive Herb Klein and columnist Art Buchwald. While students remained enthusiastic about the magazine, their pockets were not as deep as their belly laughs, and financial problems spelled the end of Wampus after spring 1957. , During the 1940s, student media at USC began to diversify into the broadcast arena. A student-run AM radio station, KTRO, regularly broadcast within the confines of the campus. When USC’s FM station, KUSC, was established in 1946, it was also student-run, and remained so until 1972. By 1955, KUSC-TV, the university’s closed-circuit television station, was providing student programming three days a week. In the mid-1970s, KSCR-FM replaced KUSC as the university’s student-run radio station. Trojan Vision, a student-run television station and a project of the USC Annenberg Center for Communication, was launched in 1997. , Today USC student media combine the best of tradition with changing technologies. The tools they use may be different from those of their predecessors, but their role on campus remains the same: serving the student body, informing and entertaining the Trojan community and providing a permanent record of what it means to be a USC student.