By Ryn Williams, Layout Editor
COVID-19 brought a lot of things. It brought a new look on health care and safety, it brought mandatory face masks, but it also brought a lot of changes in the way programs – including The Lions’ Pride Media Group – were run at Saint Leo University.
In May of 2020, The Lions’ Pride wasn’t able to distribute their graduation issue. It was mailed out to graduating seniors.
After the budget freeze of 2020, The Lions’ Pride’s budget was sliced in half, limiting the numbers of print issues we can produce and the length of each issue.
However, that hasn’t stopped us from being the voice of Saint Leo.
In Sep. 2020, we published the “COVID-19” issue. It was full of science and the history of the disease, editorials telling others to “calm down,” and even an editorial telling people about the impact COVID-19 had on funerals.
Specifically, my great-grandfather’s funeral.
I joined The Lions’ Pride in looking for community – and I’ve found it. This paper has been an outlet for my writing as much as it has been a challenging extracurricular for me.
The Lions’ Pride covers stories that cannot be found anywhere else. Our purpose is to provide a voice that otherwise would not be heard.
When writing an obituary for a Saint Leo professor, I interviewed fifteen individuals to demonstrate the enormous impact that professor had on our community (see “Remembering Dr. Jack McTague, the man who’d been around the world twice”). I’ve also covered news important to the Saint Leo community that hadn’t been picked up by other sources (see “Unfounded shooting threats rock Saint Leo community”). I tell you this not to brag about my own achievements, but to implore you: The Lions’ Pride matters.
The free press is important – that’s why it’s in the first amendment, according to Frank Orlando, an instructor of political science at Saint Leo.
“We want to know stuff, we want information – but we are busy with our own lives,” said Orlando. “Without [journalists’] help, how would we know what’s going on?”
Journalism, throughout history, has been an outlet of entertainment, a place for scientific breakthroughs to shine, and a source of information that readers can’t find anywhere else.
“I’m a big fan of reading our paper,” said Orlando, referring to The Lions’ Pride.
Our work at The Lions’ Pride mirrors the importance of journalism as a whole.
Justin Garcia is a local investigative journalist that covers corruption, cronyism, and changes that affect the Tampa and St. Petersburg community.
Journalism to Garcia means using your voice for the voiceless.
“I want to use my writing to affect the material world,” said Garcia. “To kind of uncover things that are hidden in the dark, to give a voice to people who may be being ignored.”
Garcia graduated from the journalism school at the University of South Florida in 2020. Since then, he’s been published in WMNF Community Radio, CL Tampa Bay, and will be starting a new position at the Tampa Bay Times this month.
“The history of journalism is tied into, you know, shining that light on those dark places that really need to be seen and telling stories that otherwise would just be never heard, … buried in the darkness,” said Garcia. “But for me, it’s so important to … inform the populace of what’s going on so, that way, they can live better lives and more educated lives and make their decisions accordingly.”
Before The Lions’ Pride was The Lions’ Pride, it was The Monarch.
Dr. Jennifer Hawley, a professor of humanities at Pasco Hernando State College, attended Saint Leo from 1996 to 2000, and went on to work for Saint Leo as an adjunct professor from 2006 to 2021. During her time as a student, she was promoted to copyeditor at The Monarch.
“It was a wonderful experience. I felt very welcomed by everyone,” said Hawley. “Writing stories for The Monarch allowed me to discover things about Saint Leo that I think most students don’t know about.”
One key moment Hawley experienced was interviewing Dr. Edward Dadez when he was initially hired to Saint Leo.
“Working for the Monarch was one of the most valuable parts of my experience at Saint Leo as a student,” said Hawley. “It allowed me to better understand the university […] and I think it laid a big part of the foundation for my professional success.”
Journalism is an important facet of community. Students can be found on campus leafing through our new monthly issue. Walking through St. Edward’s Hall will show anyone that faculty read our papers because they tack them up on their office doors and behind their desks.
Most of our funding goes to getting our print issue out and distributed to the community. If we lose our funding, we lose our physical connection with our readers.
Since spring of 2022, we have been limited to 16-page issues. For the 2022-2023 academic year, we had to scrap our February issue entirely due to a lack of funding.
There are ways you can help. We accept advertisements, sponsorships, and donations. These can be made by contacting our advertisement manager, Isa Riaño, at isabella.riano@email.saintleo.edu.
Even if you are unable to make a monetary donation, your readership holds just as much value. Reading our articles and watching our multimedia content can help demonstrate our importance to the community – all of our social media links can be found on the back cover of the print issue.
This is an open letter penned to you, begging you to stand with us. With all of the budget cuts and operational changes that have been made affecting the university community, I come to you asking just one thing: please don’t cut student journalism at Saint Leo.
