The Dartmouth Free Press, the College-funded liberal publication, will have $1,500 more to spend within the next few weeks, thanks to a grant from the Center for American Progress, a Democratic-leaning Washington think tank.
The grant is part of the center's $40,000 effort to enable liberal publications to compete with their more established conservative counterparts and reach out to young voters.
"We want to balance the debate on campus and strengthen progressive voices on campus," Ben Hubbard, the center's campus coordinator, said.
In all, the Washington group will award money to 14 liberal alternative newspapers on college campuses across the country. The Free Press is slated to get its money within the next several weeks, and the think tank will likely repeat the gift this fall, representatives of the two organizations said.
At four of the colleges, that means helping to bankroll new papers, but for the Free Press, it translates into some extra spending money beyond the approximately $9,000 allocated by the Council on Student Organizations each year, according to editor Clint Hendler '05.
"We're in a situation where we sort of need to flesh out in areas that we don't get money from COSO," Hendler said.
According to Hendler, the money will be used for expenses COSO can take too long to approve -- like movie tickets and travel expenses -- along with other incidentals, possibly including a new digital camera.
Unlike some other newspapers receiving grants, Hendler said readers should not expect greater press runs of the paper. The money will instead be used to increase the quality of the twice-a-month political rag.
"We are pleased that our success has been recognized, and we're excited about the opportunity to build with these funds," Hendler said, noting the paper hopes to cover national and world issues in greater depth.
Providing money to organizations like the four-year-old Free Press gives the center a chance to side against what Hubbard characterized as a disproportionately vocal conservative minority on college campuses.
Sarah Longwell, a spokesperson for the Collegiate Network, which funds conservative newspapers including the Dartmouth Review, said she welcomes new voices but doubts the viability of liberal papers.
"Conservative publications on campus have been successful because they're an alternative to liberal orthodoxy on campus," Longwell said.
Longwell claimed campus dailies like The Dartmouth also have a liberal slant.
Hubbard, meanwhile, said contributions from organizations like the Collegiate Network and the Leadership Institute have given conservative papers the upper hand in the political debate at many colleges.
"The conservative one looks better, and the writing is more cogent because they're getting money and training from professionals," Hubbard said.
The center has chosen a symbolic fight in supporting the Free Press against its established conservative rival The Dartmouth Review, which was founded in 1980.
"The [Free Press] on its own, on its merits, totally deserves our support," Hubbard said, "but by supporting that publication I believe we're sort of in the belly of the beast, so to speak, because The Dartmouth Review was the first conservative paper."
The center's program attempts to counter similar efforts by groups like the Collegiate Network, which gives several thousand dollars to the Review each year.
Review publisher Charles Kluender '04 declined to provide exact figures, saying he was not sure if it would violate contract provisions. But most funds for the Review, a corporation separate from the College, come from alumni contributors, he said.
Former Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta formed the center two years ago and unveiled a new website for its "campus progress" initiative Wednesday.
As far as any possible strings on the cash, Hubbard said the Free Press has to sign a contract for the money but only because of the center's legal requirements as a non-profit organization. He said the Center has no editorial influence, though it is providing what Hendler termed "backgrounders" about various issues.
"They wouldn't have given us the money if they didn't already think we were pretty close," Hendler noted of his paper's editorial views.
To some degree, the center's initiative mirrors the sign-on of startup liberal radio network Air America, designed to compete with conservative talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh. The center itself opened a radio studio last month, according to a press release.
