By Daniel Hernandez
After a decade of excellence, the student-run publications at Riverside City College would see yet another era of turmoil and caused significant changes to the programs between 1964-1972.
During this decade, the Associated Student Body saw a substantial decrease in funds. This led to budget reduction in programs and clubs across the campus, and the journalism program was not spared.
The publications’ budget fell from $12,000 to $3,925, leading to the end of two of six publications, leaving only The Tiger Times, Tequesquite, Tiger Tales, and Nightimes to produce news for the campus. By 1972, three more publications would fall, leaving only the biweekly paper, The Tiger Times.
Before the publications’ inevitable demise, the four papers worked hard to produce content for the college. The student handbook, Tiger Tales, would continue to produce 38-40 pages of information used by freshmen as a run-down to the college’s clubs, traditions, activities and general information.
Nightimes, a publication for the Extended Day newspaper class, produced four to six issues each semester until it met the same demise as the other papers in 1968.
The most controversial end to a publication was the student yearbook, the Tequesquite. It ended due to decreased interest in purchasing the yearbook and because magazine design was more relevant by the mid-’60s. The college created a magazine named The Spectator to replace the yearbook, which only lasted until 1972.
The Tiger Times would continue its trend toward creating more political content during the ’60s. Unlike Patton and Knopf’s eras, where advisers stayed for long periods, the paper saw four advisors come and go until settling down with a fifth. The paper would also go through changes in editor positions where some didn’t even last an entire year. Sports editors, such as Jim Alexander, would be the only position that remained stable.
The final and biggest change of this era would be the decision to change the biweekly paper’s name to Viewpoints in 1973, a name that stayed to this day.
