HUNS EDITORIAL NOTE: On Monday, Nov. 2, the editorial leadership of the Howard University News Service and The Hilltop, the nation’s oldest Black collegiate newspaper, announced a new chapter in its ongoing partnership to deliver news from the campus of Howard University and Washington, D.C., to the nation. Sydney Goitia-Doran, editor-in-chief of The Hilltop, penned the statement below.
Dear readers,
I am pleased to announce that The Hilltop and the Howard University News Service (HUNS) are expanding our existing partnership, ensuring content produced by Hilltop staff is published online while we address the restoration of our website in light of recent outages.
HUNS is approaching its 18th anniversary as a respected hyperlocal news outlet with a national reach. It is a destination website and newswire that covers national and local news from the D.C.-region, offering its multimedia stories to news outlets, including The Hilltop.
Currently, journalism is changing. Local newsrooms are shutting down, journalists are competing with social media and trust in media remains low. It is critical that in this moment, outlets committed to the ethical principles of journalism and First Amendment rights band together and continue the work in the face of these issues.
HUNS Editorial Director Yanick Rice Lamb, Ph.D., and HUNS Editor-at-Large prof. dominic k. mckenzie are coordinating the partnership on behalf of HUNS.
“We are excited to deepen a partnership with The Hilltop that acknowledges the role student reporting plays in strengthening democracy,” they said. “The student press contributes to an informed public, and to support that work in this way is an acknowledgment of its place in the civic infrastructure that democracy requires.”
The Hilltop and HUNS share many values, among them our commitment to award-winning HBCU student journalism, ethical reporting and holding truth to power. This partnership extends back many years, with Hilltop staff members writing for HUNS and The Hilltop wiring stories from the platform.
HUNS partners with over 200 Black press outlets across the nation, through its partnership with the National Newspaper Publishers Association, offering its content weekly for republication at no cost. In upcoming weeks, this network will include articles from The Hilltop, expanding our readership. I hope this renewed partnership encourages The Hilltop’s audience to explore other stories published on HUNS as well.
We will also work together to produce election coverage in the upcoming HBCU Election Project, hosted by HUNewsService.com, connecting student journalists across five HBCUs, including Howard University, Florida A&M University, North Carolina A&T University, Texas Southern University and the University of the District of Columbia, extending our coverage beyond Washington, D.C.
We invite you to read stories from our Homecoming print edition and online-exclusive coverage from the past three weeks on their website, HUNewsService.com, as well as checking out their recent work previewing upcoming midterm elections, national news and current events at Howard.
As we work toward the restoration of our website, we are committed to delivering relevant, timely stories to the Howard University community and beyond. We welcome story tips and feedback about our work as always.
In Truth and Service,
Sydney Goitia-Doran, Editor-in-Chief
