The Laney Tower is the student-run newspaper of Laney College in Oakland. While the newspaper primarily serves the Laney campus, there is also coverage of the other colleges of the Peralta Community College District (College of Alameda, Berkeley City College, and Merritt College). The Laney Tower is currently the only student newspaper in the four-campus district.
The Laney Tower was established in 1952 and is one of the oldest community college newspapers in the state of California. Tower staff has the opportunity of covering news in a unique, lively, and culturally diverse city, and gain on the job experience reporting.
The Laney Tower is a bi-weekly tabloid that is published eight times during the fall and spring semesters on Thursdays. Journalism students enrolled in Journalism 18 at the campus produce the paper.
Ironically, the “Laney Tower†name precedes the nine-story Laney Tower Administration Building that sits near the northwest corner of the campus by 19 years. The Laney Tower was previously housed on the sixth floor of the Tower building and was located in a few other areas on campus before relocating to its present offices in G233.
The Laney Tower, though not completely financially independent from the district, has a significant degree of autonomy. The paper does not receive funds from the Associated Students of Laney College (ASLC), and state law prohibits both the district’s governing board and campus administrators from censuring the paper.
The Laney Tower does have an adviser who makes recommendations to the staff, but allows decisions to be made by the paper’s Editorial Board. Distinguished Laney Tower alumni have gone on to contribute for news organizations such as the USA Today, The New Yorker, Oakland Tribune, CNN, the San Francisco Bay View, the Oakland Post and more.
In 2006, the Laney Tower launched the Tower Online, the newspaper’s website. The Tower Online has allowed staff to produce and publish content beyond the current two-week news cycle of the print edition.
In recent years, the Laney Tower has earned numerous awards from the Journalism Association of Community Colleges (JACC), ranging from individual awards for staff writers and photographers, to the coveted General Excellence award recognizing journalism excellence.
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