EXCLUSIVE — A new website will be serving as a home for non-woke college newspapers across the country in the style of Drudge Report.
The Collegiate Network, a program from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) that provides grants to student-led publications combating liberal groupthink, has launched an aggregate platform that will highlight stories and reporting on college campuses.
“More than anything, we want these students to be in pursuit of the truth with no ideological bias,” Collegiate Network executive editor Marlo Slayback told Fox News Digital in an interview. “We’re trying to train these students to be trustworthy and reliable fixtures in newsrooms that are relied upon by the public to accurately and honestly report on what’s happening, not just at their campus, but hopefully one day outside the campus bubble.”
Founded in 1953, ISI’s stated mission is to promote “conservative thought and the Western tradition” on college campuses. Grants provided to the student-run newspapers go towards operational expenses like cameras, printers and costly materials for physical copies.
Over the decades, the Collegiate Network has backed over 90 publications at some of the nation’s most elite universities, including The Cornell Review, University of Chicago’s The Harper Review, Harvard University’s The Yard Report, Columbia University’s The Sundial and The Stanford Review. The network fosters complete editorial independence among its papers.
The website, Slayback said, will elevate underrepresented voices and reporting that restores the basic tenets of journalism in the hopes that students will carry with them in the professional world.
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The initiative hits close to home for Slayback, who was a student journalist at the University of Pittsburgh and worked as an education reporter for The Daily Caller before joining ISI.
“We’re taking the work that they’re doing and showcasing it in a way that gives them national visibility. And that’s all in pursuit of kind of building out a talent pipeline,” Slayback said. “Success means more young journalists are feeling confident that their work matters and that their voices, especially those that aren’t always amplified, have a real audience.“
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There has been a reckoning at universities in recent years, specifically regarding their implementation of DEI practices and how they address the increase in antisemitism on campuses.
“There’s a growing demand for insight into what’s happening on college campuses, but I think there’s also recognition that not all perspectives are equally visible, and I think this platform addresses both those gaps,” Slayback said. “So it does provide that real reporting from students on the ground, and it ensures that viewpoints, particularly conservative ones, the ones that might otherwise be overlooked as part of the national conversation, that those are prominently featured.”
