Former Bush administration Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declined an invitation to speak at this year’s Rutgers University commencement ceremony, following a drawn-out controversy that was extensively covered by the university’s student newspaper, The Daily Targum.

Similar to The Daily Northwestern’s coverage of athletics unionization that I spoke about before, the Targum’s website has dedicated a whole page to the papers’s coverage of the battle between the university faculty and portion of the student body, who are protesting Rice’s involvement with the Iraq War, including allegations of connections to war crimes.

On Saturday, the paper had breaking news coverage of Rice’s decline of her invitation. That coverage also included  backgorund information for those who had not kept up with the story.

For the visually minded, the paper also put together a Storify feed for the day’s news.

In addition to continuing and breaking news coverage, the Targum has been covering this story extensively in its opinion pages, publishing letters to the editor, editorials and columns on the matter over thew months. After student protesters stormed the president’s office several days before Rice’s announcement, the Targum issued this editorial calling on administrators to give attention to the growing dissent.

The Targum’s fair, accurate and continued coverage of this story, and its ability to hold administrators under the spotlight, is a great example of the effect college media can have.