We have some exciting news to share! The Lantern, Ohio State's student news organization, is getting a new home on the first floor of the Journalism Building. We still have a lot of work ahead of us, but this is an important development for the school, the journalism program, and The Lantern Media Group.
The new space will include a large, modern newsroom, where we will continue to produce award-winning journalism for the Ohio State community and beyond. It will also feature a podcasting studio, where our students can create engaging audio stories and interviews. It will have offices and a meeting room, where student journalists can plan their coverage and collaborate with their peers. And it will include two new state-of-the-art video production studios, one of which we’ll share with the Department of Theatre, Film, and Media Arts.
The Lantern, founded in 1881, has had a variety of homes over the years, but it has been housed in the Journalism Building for almost a century. For the past few decades, it has occupied a space on the second floor, tucked away in the back of the building. Over the years, this space has undergone a variety of renovations. The last major update was in 2014, when the newsroom was split in half to create the Lantern TV studio.
This will be the most significant upgrade to the Lantern Media Group’s space in many years. The entrance to the new space will be in the main lobby of the building, giving the organization a much higher profile on campus. We are still in the preliminary design phase, but this rendering gives us a glimpse of what our new space could look like. It is spacious and modern, and it reflects our history of innovation and excellence.
The project is made possible by generous support from the College of Arts and Sciences. This investment reflects the value that the college places on the School of Communication and the Lantern Media Group. And with good reason! The Lantern won a dozen awards from the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists and the Ohio News Media Association in 2023 alone, including being named the Society of Professional Journalists’ Best College Newspaper in the state. Each year, news content posted to thelantern.com is viewed several million times. Videos shared on social media generated almost 10 million engagements in 2022. We are proud of our achievements and our impact on the Ohio State community.
The school is also grateful to alumnus John Oller for creating the Oller Newsroom Fund. This gift will help us to make this an exceptional space for producing exceptional news coverage. John, who earned his journalism degree in 1979, is a retired attorney and the author of seven books, including, most recently, Rogues’ Gallery: The Birth of Modern Policing and Organized Crime in Gilded Age New York (2021). He is also a member of the school’s Advancement Board, and he has been a longtime supporter of The Lantern. We thank him for his generosity and vision.
We hope you are as excited as we are about this move. We will keep you updated on our progress and invite you to join us for a grand opening celebration when we are ready. Thank you for your support and stay tuned for more news from the School of Communication!
Kelly Garrett
Director, School of Communication
