History
The Independent was founded in January 2005 by Stony Brook University undergraduate students Michael Nevradakis, Jeff Licitra and Karen Mascher, to serve as an alternative hard news publication to the well-established Stony Brook Statesman. Nevradakis had previously been an editor for the Statesman, before resigning in the fall of 2004, alleging that the Statesman was not following its constitution and other governing documents, a matter which reached the University's Undergraduate Student Government Judiciary. Several other writers also resigned from the Statesman that fall for similar reasons, many of whom also became founding members of the Independent as well.
The name Independent was chosen to signify the new publication's identity as an unbiased, credible, objective source of news pertaining to the Stony Brook University campus, without any display of favoritism towards the University's administration, student government or any specific body of students, while striving to maintain and uphold the highest levels of journalistic ethics. The decision to maintain the Independent as a primarily online publication also reflected the founding editors' goal to provide a source of information that can be updated in real time, which would integrate other audiovisual media such as extensive photo journalism, audio and video, and which would provide a high degree of interactivity with its readers and the campus community.
In its first year of operation, the Independent was published as a subsidiary publication of the Stony Brook University student chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). The Independent also affiliated with Google News, and twice had its articles appear on the front page of Google News in 2005. .
In fall 2005, the Independent was officially registered as a stand-alone student organization by the Undergraduate Student Government at Stony Brook University, while still maintaining links with the student chapter of SPJ at Stony Brook. That fall, the Independent also made its first foray into print, through the publication of special "Off the Walls," poster-sized publications resembling a print newspaper's front page, typically with one or two major news headlines, as well as references to the Independent's online presence. Also in fall 2005, the Independent collaborated with the Stony Brook Press, to publish a campus "survival guide" for new students, which appeared online on the Independent's website as well as in print in the Stony Brook Press
Read more about this topic: Stony Brook Independent
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