UNC’s student-run business news wire is temporarily suspended due to ‘low enrollment’

CHAPEL HILL — UNC-Chapel Hill’s student-run business newswire is temporarily out of commission.

The reason: low-enrollment in the class that produces the news feed, said Dr. Charlie Tuggle, Senior Associate Dean at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media.

“We have a policy at the school if we have a class with fewer than 10, we don’t teach that class. That was the situation that we had this semester.”

NC Business News Wire started up in 2016 with a group 10 business journalism students under distinguished professor and senior associate dean Chris Roush, producing more than 330 stories each semester.

The stories were picked up by media such as the Charlotte Observer, The (Durham) Herald-Sun, the Charlotte Business Journal and WRAL Techwire.

Last August, Roush left UNC to take up the post as dean of Quinnipiac University’s School of Communications in Connecticut.

Lauren Berry, managing editor at Bloomberg News New York City bureau, stepped in for one semester, teaching the class last fall.

However, Tuggle says not to despair. The course — and newswire — are expected to return. The School is currently advertising for a permanent lecturer on a number of business journalism websites.

“It is on the books for next semester, and the preliminary semester after that,” said Tuggle. “The idea is that we’re going to continue to teach it. We’ll see who this new hire might be.”