Who killed Student Media Co., the independent nonprofit that published Southern Methodist University's campus newspaper?

SMU professor and journalism division chair Tony Pederson says it wasn't him, despite what mad-as-hell alumni of The Daily Campus might think.

"It just didn't work here," said Pederson, a veteran newsman who once served as The Houston Chronicle's executive editor. "It didn't work from a financial standpoint, and there was nothing that we could do really to prop it up to the extent that would have to happen."

Alumni of The Daily Campus don't dispute all of that. The Student Media Co. did run out of money. But a hostile relationship with the university's journalism department and inept management of the Student Media Co. dragged The Daily Campus down, they say.

What's at stake is much more than just a little campus newspaper. SMU is a crucial private institution in Dallas with a $1.6 billion endowment and nearly 12,000 students. The Daily Campus was the primary independent voice covering a place that isn't subject to open records laws like a public university.

The question now — as The Daily Campus is folded into the university's journalism division — is whether that independence will be quashed. It's a question with national resonance. The failure of Student Media Co. has sparked a movement to save independent journalism at other American universities.

The main problem isn't complicated. In the digital age, Student Media Co. had the same broken business model as every other traditional print publisher. But most others have scrambled to find new sources of revenue to sustain operations. The Student Media Co. didn't make much effort, critics say.

So The Daily Campus — which has been printed lately as The Campus Weekly — will fall under the control of the journalism division as an online-only publication.

Alumni of the independent Daily Campus are terrified of the prospect. Accountability stories about SMU will be a thing of the past, they say. A university long controlled by the wealthy and the powerful will enjoy a house organ, they fear.

"What is lost when you lose independence is confidence to courageously take on people in authority," said Frank LoMonte, director of the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information and former executive director of the Student Press Law Center. "It's really hard to have that confidence when you know, at the end of the day, you're answerable to the journalism department or the provost."

Alumni fondly remember the work they did at The Daily Campus to expose sexual assaults on campus, problems in the university's athletics department and a toxic frat culture. Some student reporters and editors got internships and jobs because of their work at The Daily Campus. Many alumni have gone to work for The Dallas Morning News and other major news organizations.

A stack of SMU Campus Weekly newspapers, produced by The Daily Campus, and SMU Look sits outside the Student Media Co. office at SMU in Dallas on Monday, May 14, 2018. SMU's independent student media company was set to be dissolved, forcing its student newspaper The Daily Campus under the control of the school's journalism department. (Rose Baca / Staff Photographer)

But college media, like print newspapers everywhere, has been threatened in recent years. A national movement sprang up in response to SMU's paper affiliating with the university, spearheaded by The Independent Florida Alligator. Student papers published editorials about the need for student media and started a social media campaign with the hashtag #SaveStudentNewsrooms.

Long term, LoMonte said, it will be up to universities to set up a structure that allows as much independence as possible even if the student media is an arm of the university. That doesn't always work everywhere, and LoMonte said censorship — and self-censorship to avoid causing a stir — will be a likely consequence.

"You have to have a culture on the campus that is tolerant of criticism and controversy, and you have to have an administration with the backbone to put up with some unfavorable publicity," he said. "Not every college has those things."

Texas Christian University professor Chip Stewart, an SMU graduate, says his university has a culture of protecting students' independence. TCU's student media organization, TCU 360, operates under the university's journalism school. Administration there is committed to keeping its hands off the paper, Stewart said.

But his experience as a student journalist at The Daily Campus doesn't give him the same confidence in SMU.

"Every one of us had to deal with situations where the administration tried to censor us," he said.

Former Daily Campus editor Jessica Huseman, a reporter with ProPublica, has been among the most vocal critics of SMU.

"I wish that all schools had an independent newspaper, but I realize I'm an idealist," she said. "But I think SMU specifically needs one because SMU is such a secretive place."

Huseman's time at SMU coincided with the creation of The Daily Mustang, a digital-only publication created by journalism professor Jake Batsell, a former reporter for The News. The Daily Campus at the time didn't have a strong website, he said. And faculty agreed and wanted to merge it with SMU-TV. The Daily Mustang and The Daily Campus became competitors.

Huseman, the loudest critic of the SMU takeover, said The Daily Mustang was too soft and was illustrative of the journalism division's efforts to kill off The Daily Campus.

"The journalism school has essentially washed its hands of this problem," she said. "But they don't get to. They started a competitive newspaper. They allowed their journalism professors to act in a way that was openly hostile to The Daily Campus, and they always have."

1 / 2Exterior of the journalism complex at the Umphrey Lee Center at SMU in Dallas on Monday, May 14, 2018. SMU's independent student media company was set to be dissolved in May, forcing its student newspaper The Daily Campus under the control of the school's journalism department. (Rose Baca / Staff Photographer) 2 / 2The Pederson Broadcast Studio in the journalism complex at the Umphrey Lee Center at SMU in Dallas on Monday, May 14, 2018. SMU's independent student media company was set to be dissolved in May, forcing its student newspaper The Daily Campus under the control of the school's journalism department. (Rose Baca / Staff Photographer)

Batsell said the relationship between The Daily Campus and the journalism school was tense when he arrived in 2008. And San Antonio TV reporter Sarah Acosta, who served as The Daily Mustang's managing editor, said she felt hostility coming the other way — from the independent newspaper.

"We were treated as the dirty stepchild because we weren't The Daily Campus," Acosta said.

The two sides made peace in 2011, and the journalism department agreed to essentially merge the online Mustang with the print newspaper. The tension faded, Batsell said. He later joined the Student Media Co. board.

During the years since, the nonprofit continued to lose money by tens of thousands of dollars every year. By the end of 2013, its net assets were $212,846. By the end of 2016, the nonprofit had half that. Student Media Co., which also ran the yearbook and a fashion magazine, cut positions and eventually reduced print production to one day a week.

Little effort was made during those years of declining revenue to fundraise. Batsell, board spokesman David Sedman and former executive director Jay Miller could point to only one such effort: a 2015 event tied to the university's Centennial celebration.

The trouble was that many of those invited to the reunion blow-out seemed unclear this was an event intended to bolster an increasingly shaky Student Media Co..

Mark Norris, an alum who now works at KDFW-TV (Channel 4) and Jennifer Bassman Rogers remember seeing the old issues of the yearbook and The Daily Campus spread out on tables. And they remember seeing old friends and feeling a generally positive vibe as alumni scooped up free TexMex.

What they don't remember is being asked for a donation. Others who attended said there was a request, and the printed invitations, unlike the emailed ones, featured a line asking for a contribution.

But they said the situation hardly sounded dire, and Rogers said the request wasn't obvious.

"It seemed more about reflection and the good old days and remembering how much fun we had being a part of student media. It didn't come across as a fundraiser," she said. "We didn't appear to be there for any other reason other than actually gathering us all in a room so we could see each other again."

Whatever was said, the nonprofit's tax form for 2015 lists just $865 in contributions and grants.

Batsell said the messaging at the event could've been clearer. And he said the board discussed other possible revenue sources, but not much came of it.

Batsell, who has written papers detailing The Texas Tribune's nonprofit strategy, said it costs money to raise money. Student Media Co. instead primarily relied on cuts as the decline in print advertising took its toll.

An issue of the SMU Campus Weekly, produced by The Daily Campus, is left on a bench outside the journalism complex at the Umphrey Lee Center at SMU in Dallas on Monday, May 14, 2018. (Rose Baca / Staff Photographer)

"Could we have done a better job collectively as a board to address [the downward trend] and more proactively seek out help from alumni at the time?" Batsell said. "Yeah, we probably could have."

Miller said he tried several business and marketing tactics to grow readership and revenue. That included publishing an edition of the newspaper to distribute before football games, shooting student ID photos for the university and some rack advertising ploys.

It didn't matter, Miller said. Student Media Co. was destined to fail in the current environment. The former journalist said he saw the slow death coming when he took the job in 2008. He said he wanted university support — either from fees or funding support — and couldn't get support. He couldn't rely on alumni either, he said.

"It's not like PBS," he said. "You can't just keep going to your viewers, your contribution base."

But supporters of The Daily Campus, led by Huseman, said they raised $40,000 in a few weeks once they heard SMU might take over the publication. Still, Miller scoffed at the notion that The Daily Campus bore any similarities to other nonprofit journalism models.

"The totally independent student media model is just a thing of the past," he said.

Journalism faculty have answered alumni that they are just as interested in a free press as the students. Retired professor Carolyn Barta and adjunct professor Jayne Suhler, both former journalists with The News, said student media and the journalism division are aligned in providing solid, tough reporting.

Lauren Smart, a journalism professor who joined the board when the nonprofit was folding, is more critical of the fall of The Daily Campus. A 2011 SMU graduate, Smart credits her time at The Daily Campus with getting her jobs, internships and acceptance to graduate school.

But Smart, the online adviser to The Daily Campus, sees the move as a way to rebuild the paper, which "really became a skeleton of itself."

The paper had been in trouble even when Smart was a student. And Miller, she said, "seemed to have no interest in the students and our work."

"When you look back at the finances for the last 10 years, there's a question of, what were we paying him to do?" Smart said. "It still frustrates me."

Miller said Smart's comments are "unfortunate because I cared very much for the students and all of our publications and programs, and I think anyone who knows me personally knows that."

Pederson, whose official title is the Belo distinguished chair of journalism, said no one is celebrating the demise of the Student Media Co. He vowed to ensure as much independence as possible. But he was also critical of the quality of the journalism and the production of The Daily Campus. The website was spotty, and important stories were often missed, he said.

"I defy anyone to look at The Daily Campus website and tell me we can use it as a really good teaching tool," he said. "Because we can't. It's not a website that's committed to covering the campus."

Student Media Co. should have moved The Daily Campus into the state-of-the-art newsroom in the journalism division to save on rent, Pederson said. The publication should have been more digitally focused and given up on print sooner, he said. He also pointed out, at the time of the interview, that the website didn't yet have any stories about the SMU players drafted in this year's draft or the 50th anniversary of the Martin Luther King assassination even though King once spoke at SMU.

The student journalists, he said, haven't been given direction to "really talk about what news is and to really understand how to write it and how to get it up with immediacy."

Huseman said the quality of The Daily Campus might well improve under the new leadership.

"I don't think there is any real argument to be made that the quality of the paper will suffer under the journalism school," she said. "I'm sure the website will be beautiful. I'm sure the quality of the work that goes on the website will be higher than what currently goes on The Daily Campus.

"But that's not really the point."

Clarification, 5 p.m. May 18: This story has been updated to clarify the jobs of Jayne Suhler, Carolyn Barta and Lauren Smart.