The New York Times Company Foundation Launches Campus Weblines, a National Initiative to Help High Schools Publish Online Newspapers

NEW YORK — The New York Times Company Foundation, in cooperation with New York Times Digital, announced today the launch of Campus Weblines, a national initiative that gives high school students and faculty advisers across the country the information and tools they need to publish school newspapers online.

The full text of Campus Weblines is now available free through The New York Times Learning Network at www.nytimes.com/learning/weblines. The manual includes the basics of online writing and editing, practical information on how to put words and images online, suggestions for organizing a newspaper staff and integrating journalism into the high school classroom, and instruction in the professional and ethical issues raised by instant-access news. In addition, the manual offers free templates that schools with little technical expertise can use to get a paper up and running quickly, along with free software for those schools that choose a more challenging technical path. Campus Weblines shows how students can publish a timely, lively online newspaper with an Internet connection and at least one computer for the newspaper’s staff to use.

“Printed weekly newspapers, once routine parts of high school life, have become increasingly rare because of cost, depriving students interested in journalism of valuable experience and motivation,” said Jack Rosenthal, president of The New York Times Company Foundation. “At the same time, probably no one in modern society knows more about the Web than high school students. We hope that Campus Weblines will encourage and cultivate interest in journalism across the country.”

The availability of Campus Weblines is currently being announced to 29,800 high schools in the United States.

The Campus Weblines initiative began last spring when The New York Times Company Foundation issued a challenge to student journalists at Stuyvesant High School in lower Manhattan. The students were asked to figure out how they, or any high school in America, could publish a high-quality newspaper online at little or no cost. Karen Freeman, an editor of The New York Times’s Circuits section, and Steven Knowlton, Ph.D., a journalism professor and author of a Times handbook on how the newspaper can be incorporated into the college curriculum, advised them on how to do so and then used the Stuyvesant case study as the basis for Campus Weblines. At Stuyvesant, the exercise resulted in the creation of The Spectator Online (www.stuyspectator.org), which is frequently updated and is starting to carve out an identity distinct from its sibling print paper, The Stuyvesant Spectator.

The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT – news) is a diversified media company including newspapers, magazines, television and radio stations, and electronic information and publishing. The Company’s core purpose is to enhance society by creating, collecting and distributing high-quality news, information and entertainment. In 2001 the Company was ranked No. 1 in the publishing industry in Fortune’s list of America’s Most Admired Companies. In October 2000 the Company was ranked No. 1 in the publishing industry in Fortune’s survey of the Global Most Admired Companies and was ranked first among all companies in the survey for the quality of its products and services.

The Company, which had 2000 revenues of $3.5 billion, publishes The New York Times, The Boston Globe and 15 other newspapers; publishes four magazines, including Golf Digest; operates eight network-affiliated television stations and owns two New York City radio stations. It also operates news, photo and graphics services as well as news and feature syndicates. A division of the Company, New York Times Digital, operates Internet properties such as NYTimes.com, Boston.com and newyorktoday.com. The Company holds interests in one newsprint mill, one supercalendered paper mill and the International Herald Tribune S.A.S.

Contact Information

The New York Times Company, New York

Lisa Carparelli, 646-698-8212;

E-mail carpall@nytimes.com

Catherine Mathis, 212-556-1981;

E-mail mathicj@nytimes.com