''The Fountain Hopper'' or ''FoHo'' is an
anonymous email
Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" mean ...
-based
student publication
A student publication is a media outlet such as a newspaper, magazine, television show, or radio station produced by students at an educational institution. These publications typically cover local and school-related news, but they may also repor ...
serving
Stanford University. It consists of an irregular
newsletter with original reporting and a digest of Stanford-related news. Unlike other publications serving the Stanford community, it is fully independent, taking no money from either the University or the
student union. ''The Fountain Hopper'' has broken several stories of national importance, including ''
People v. Turner
''People v. Turner'', formally ''The People of the State of California v. Brock Allen Turner'' (2015), is a high-profile criminal case in which Brock Allen Turner was convicted by jury trial of three counts of felony sexual assault.
On Januar ...
''.
History
''The Fountain Hopper'' was founded in September 2014 by Ilya Mouzykantskii, then a junior at Stanford University majoring in
symbolic systems
Computational linguistics is an interdisciplinary field concerned with the computational modelling of natural language, as well as the study of appropriate computational approaches to linguistic questions. In general, computational linguistics ...
. The publication operated on a shoestring budget of under $5,000 for its first 24 months, and continues to be funded entirely by student donations.
Notable reporting
In January 2015, ''The Fountain Hopper'
brokethe
Brock Turner
''People v. Turner'', formally ''The People of the State of California v. Brock Allen Turner'' (2015), is a high-profile criminal case in which Brock Allen Turner was convicted by jury trial of three counts of felony sexual assault.
On Janua ...
story. Three years later, ''The Fountain Hopper'
reportedthat Stanford repeatedly rejected the victim's choice of quotes for a memorial plaque that the university had promised to place at the site of the crime.
Later in 2015, ''The Fountain Hopper'' initiated
campaigninforming Stanford students to of their right to access their
admissions files through an obscure provision in
FERPA
The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA or the Buckley Amendment) is a United States federal law that governs the access to educational information and records by public entities such as potential employers, publicly funded e ...
, a federal law governing access to educational records. Over 2,800 Stanford students submitted FERPA requests. Students at colleges around the US filed FERPA requests of their own, leading to universities across the US releasing previously private records relating to college admissions and changing their file retention policies.
In March 2015, ''The Fountain Hopper'' collaborated with ''
Vice
A vice is a practice, behaviour, or habit generally considered immoral, sinful, criminal, rude, taboo, depraved, degrading, deviant or perverted in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a negative character t ...
'' t
break the storyof a
Stanford Medical School
Stanford University School of Medicine is the medical school of Stanford University and is located in Stanford, California. It traces its roots to the Medical Department of the University of the Pacific, founded in San Francisco in 1858. This ...
student who, over the course of several months, poisoned her classmates with
paraformaldehyde
Paraformaldehyde (PFA) is the smallest polyoxymethylene, the polymerization product of formaldehyde with a typical degree of polymerization of 8–100 units. Paraformaldehyde commonly has a slight odor of formaldehyde due to decomposition. Paraf ...
. The story garnered significant attention in
Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...
, as the accused was an
A*Star
The Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) is a statutory board under the Ministry of Trade and Industry of Singapore.
The agency supports R&D that is aligned to areas of competitive advantage and national needs for Singapore ...
scholar.
In January 2018, FoHo reported on a Stanford admissions officer, Karen Alonzo, who used the official Stanford
Instagram account to like her personal photographs. Stanford subsequently removed her name from the list of admissions officers, reassigning her applicant territories to another admissions officer.
See also
* ''
The Stanford Daily
''The Stanford Daily'' is the student-run, independent daily newspaper serving Stanford University. ''The Daily'' is distributed throughout campus and the surrounding community of Palo Alto, California, United States. It has published since the ...
''
* ''
The Stanford Review
''The Stanford Review'' (also known as ''The Review'') is a student-run newspaper that serves Stanford University in Stanford, California. It was founded in 1987 by Peter Thiel and Norman Book.
History
In 1987, after around 500 students particip ...
''
* ''
Stanford Chaparral
The ''Stanford Chaparral'' (also known as the ''Chappie'') is a humor magazine published by students of Stanford University since 1899.
History
The ''Stanford Chaparral'' was established in 1899 by Bristow Adams. Published for more than 112 ye ...
''
*''
The Stanford Flipside''
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fountain Hopper, The
Stanford University publications
Newspapers published in the San Francisco Bay Area
Student newspapers published in California
American student news websites