The Today is published as an academic tool by the students and staff of the Department of Mass Communications and is the officially sanctioned newspaper of Colorado State University-Pueblo. Students working on the Today must abide by the professional ethical standards defined by the Society of Professional Journalists and the Associated Press.
The Today newspaper is published several times in the fall and spring semesters. The Today news website is updated daily during the academic year, excluding final exam periods and holidays
SUPPORT FROM COLORADO MEDIA PROJECT
Advancing Equity 2023, 2022
2023 Advancing Equity Award: $25,000 to provide Year Two support for CSU Pueblo - The Today’s Discovering Diverse Voices community engagement project, as it launches a student-led community reporting desk in collaboration with the library and Pueblo Star Journal, funds and supports a student to lead the Bureau, and engages community stakeholders in the existing DEI advisory committee.
2023 Advancing Equity Update: The Today had established their DEI Board of community liaisons just before the closure of the Pueblo Chieftain’s press was announced. Supported by these stakeholders, their adaptive response has been to shift their student-led product to a long-form feature magazine, paired with an expansion of their multi-media and digital products, and content-sharing partnerships with radio programs like The DROP from RMPBS, to create a converged media model. Equipped with this platform, CSU students are planning to expand their work beyond Pueblo, with projects from Trinidad to Las Animas telling community-focused multi-media stories, and a student journalism mentorship partnership with majority Black, Latinx, and rural school districts in Southern Colorado.
2022 Advancing Equity Award: $25,000 to support first-year implementation of Community Story Bureaus, including development of a DEI Advisory Board, recruitment of a DEI Student Leader, and development of plan for leveraging University faculty and resources to support students and citizen journalists in covering issues germane to Pueblo residents.
2022 Advancing Equity Impact: One of the most significant impacts our project has has has been on the student, learning, and education side of journalism education. Journalism education has been struggling nationally, and while other programs have been shuddering their programs, we felt a need to serve our community and region by rethinking what journalism is and how we can future proof it. The grant also allowed us to commit resources and create new student roles (we hope them to be longterm and lasting) that otherwise would not have been possible. Having this integrated into the newspaper has changed the perspective of the newspaper and our course offerings. We have embraced the tenets of the grant across several of our courses and student media (radio immediately and TV is Spring 2023). The students are now community-journalism focused with an interest in journalism beyond "traditional" news. One other impact the grant has had is on community relations. The outreach of the student coordinator has begun to open doors and conversations about what we are doing and how we are embracing Pueblo and diversity through programming. There is still much work to be done, but the journalism aspect is our foundation and I have been working with other organizations (such as Rocky Mountain Public Media) to bring more diverse and community-specific programming to radio and video.