Our Crowdfunding Groups
Washington Square News, founded in 1973, delivers news to thousands of readers at NYU’s Manhattan and Brooklyn campuses as well as in Greenwich Village, Downtown Brooklyn and at all of NYU’s global campuses. We pledge to serve our readers daily with the most relevant information concerning university and student life. Our most important aims are holding the university administration accountable, advocating for the student body and educating the journalists of the future. However, we are not immune to the threats newsrooms across the country face. We are in imminent danger of permanently losing our print issues. Our budget does not allow us to print this semester, meaning our newsstands across campus remain empty and our readers are unable to flip through a physical copy of our work.
WSN provides an opportunity for student journalists to acquire reporting experience and launch their journalism careers prior to graduating. But with no print issues or financial compensation and a budget slashed in half, we are at risk of losing this cornerstone of NYU.
A historical critique of contemporary journalism is the lack of diversity in newsrooms. Without adequately compensating writers, WSN will become a place where low-income students and students under financial duress are unable to work without sacrificing their better-paying jobs and livelihoods. As a result, our diversity will take a massive hit. An investment in WSN is an investment in a future where unheard voices are amplified and empowered to tell their own stories.
Maintaining our legacy is an uphill battle. But it’s one that we will choose to fight, over and over, again and again. For those of us who work multiple jobs to continue writing at WSN. For those of us who believe in the transformative power of words and freely flowing information. For our management, board, writers, photographers and copy editors, who shape our paper with love and care and place it into our readers’ hands. There is so much work to do, and we will continue to do it with spirit, humility and care. But it is impossible without your support.
With our readers and community rallying behind us, we can bring back print and emerge from these challenges better formed and even stronger.
What We Have Achieved
- Our staff has gone on to pursue careers at journalism mainstays such as CNN, NBC, Vox, the Guardian, New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
- We covered the first case of COVID-19 at NYU and have kept students informed of COVID-related developments and NYU campus safety measures.
- A contributor shot film photographs at Ground Zero on Sept. 11, 2001, and published them in the Washington Post Magazine — including the cover photo.
- We have covered the university’s labor unions and strikes over the past two decades of labor organizing at NYU, all of which were later reported on by national news outlets.
- We were one of the first news outlets on the scene of the Tandon student shooting and were one of the first to break the story.
Receive a previous print edition of our newspaper.
We'll name a desk in the newsroom after you.
We'll put your name on our award wall in the conference room.
We'll put your name on the masthead as a donor. Your name will be visible in the e-print editions.
