The Fulcrum: SUNY Broome’s Beacon Of Accountability

The history, and importance, of SUNY Broome’s student-run newspaper

On any college campus, it’s important to have student journalism.

College newspapers are vital for a number of reasons, one being the value they provide as an accessible outlet for getting your voice heard as a student. Student-run newspapers welcome student perspectives on issues, and if you want to make a statement on your campus, one of the best ways to do it is by contacting your college’s newspaper.

Another reason why college journalism is important is because it is able to hold truth to power, and serve as a snapshot in time for years to come. College journalists are often the only ones who are willing to report on things going on at a college campus, from the fun events to the nitty-gritty policy decisions. College newspapers serve as a beacon of accountability, institutional memory, and an important platform for students and faculty alike.

At SUNY Broome, that beacon is The Fulcrum. Though it has gone by different names throughout the years, The Fulcrum has been Broome’s student-run newspaper since 1948, and has been an invaluable representation of our school’s history, as well as a great way to get students involved. Former Fulcrum Vice President Thomas Corey (LACM ’20) said, "I think journalism is important because every person should have the ability to know the truth about what’s going on and how it can affect them so they can be involved." Anita Knopp Doll, former advisor for The Fulcrum and BCC Journalism Professor holds a similar belief, saying, "It’s important to have watchdogs, what we’ve seen is such a horrible diminished reduction in community journalism, so it’s heartening to me to see that [SUNY Broome] still has some fairly aggressive journalism going on. It’s important for civic education to understand what journalism is about and its role, whether you ever become a journalist or not, to have had some understanding we need people watching what’s going on."

From its inauguration in 1948, the school has had student-run journalism every step of the way. From 1948 to 1970, our newspaper was known as "Tech Talk" which came from SUNY Broome’s first name, the State University of New York Institute of Applied Arts & Sciences, and then Broome County Technical Institute three years later. When the name of the college changed to Broome Community College, the newspaper became known as The Fulcrum. It remained the Fulcrum until 1996 when it became the BCC Hornet. It was published under this name until it stopped publishing in 2003.

The newspaper remained dormant until it was revived in 2017 when it was brought back to life as The Fulcrum by members of the student assembly. The Fulcrum has continued to bring great journalism to campus ever since. As of 2020, The Fulcrum now has a digital edition, a necessary format in general, but especially so during a pandemic, with fewer people on campus.

The Fulcrum has value in reporting the here and now news, but also serves as a time capsule for days of SUNY Broome’s past. Old editions of the Fulcrum from the 70s give a glimpse into topics such as basketball coaching legend Dick Baldwin’s 700th career win, a Kinks concert at SUNY Binghamton, a fire in the business building, and the Iranian hostage crisis, just to name a few. The Fulcrum even received a first-class rating with three marks of distinction from the National Scholastic Press Association and the Associated College Press in 1985. The 1983 to 1984 photo editor Linda Ruspantini (PL ’85) said winning the award "was like winning the Pulitzer prize… you feel like ‘wow, I’m bigger than life,’ but not in a prideful way, in a humble way that you were able to be part of something that’s so much bigger than yourself."

The accolade followed a speech made by former President Ronald Reagan at Ty Cobb Stadium in Endicott on his reelection tour, and subsequent events by then Governor Mario Cuomo, and Geraldine Ferraro, the Democratic candidate for Vice President, in Johnson City and Elmira respectively. Linda Ruspantini said, "When the motorcade came up with Ronald Reagan, I felt nervous and excited like a thirteen-year-old probably was for Justin Bieber…I probably took 500 pictures or more." Valerie Mahar (LA ’85), The Fulcrum editor in 1985, covered the Mario Cuomo event and said, "It was a new experience for me, and I was actually starstruck when I came close to Mario Cuomo." The Fulcrum faithfully covered these events, including the accompanying protests for their September 1984 issue, forever preserving an important part of our area’s history. That same group of Fulcrum members was even almost sued by McDonald’s, who demanded a retraction of a report which said workers were seen putting flies in the burgers!

Back in the early 80s, Tony Ruspantini (LA ’85) said, "we were typing our articles on the one shared newspaper office electric typewriter. Actually, I did most of my newspaper article assignments with a word processor program on a dot matrix printer from my Commodore 64 computer. Usually, at about 3 am in the morning on deadline night we’d finish. Then drive half an hour to our printers in Greene, NY to drop our copy and layout pages of the latest edition - all packed in one huge manila envelope."

Someday future generations will look back at the current Fulcrum’s articles as important time capsules as well. Perhaps the most interesting to future students will be the Fulcrum’s coverage of the pandemic. From the outset, articles covered every aspect of the outbreak, from sports shutdowns to empty Wegmans shelves, and Governor Andrew Cuomo’s orders for remote learning in the SUNY system. These articles are now archived in the library’s database, and will be readily available for anyone who wants to know what it was like to be there during the coronavirus pandemic of 2020.

The Fulcrum, just like any club at SUNY Broome, is important to help students form a sense of community at school. Thomas Corey said, "The Fulcrum did help me get more involved on campus because it got me talking to more people, it kind of got me out there… I got to interview some really interesting people, especially in the higher up here, the administration, that I probably wouldn’t have been able to speak with before unless I was doing the club. It definitely got me more involved."

Former members of The Fulcrum often have very fond memories of their time on the paper. Thomas Corey said, "One of my favorite memories is just being challenged in the club and being able to work on it and be happy with what I did. That and also just being able to work with other talented writers, or just people that are interested in giving news to people." Tony Ruspantini, the Fulcrum’s Designer, Editor, Editorial Page Editor, and Ad Sales Manager from 1982 to 1985, said, "It was a great time, a lot of late nights. When we manufactured the paper, we ended up going to Sidney, New York, it was a 40-minute drive back and forth, it was a lot of hard work." Former Advisor Anita Knopp Doll said, "It became such a fun, social thing. People were working together on a project, but they were also having a good time. And there was a certain level of status of belonging to the Fulcrum. We made the administration sit up and take notice."

SUNY Broome just wouldn’t be the same without The Fulcrum. Thomas Corey put it aptly when he said students should join the Fulcrum "because it’s really fun and it really makes you think and craft a story that’s interesting. You can gather information about something that’s interesting. And that’s what’s fun too, it’s an activity, you’re not just writing necessarily, you can go out to a place and observe, you can take a picture, you can interview, or watch a game. Whatever it is it’s still something you’re doing, and it’s fun to craft a story based on something real, something that’s relevant to people, and give it to them in a way that’s easy to understand and let them know exactly what’s happening.

Originally published Spring 2021 in the SUNY Broome BROOME Alumni Magazine