Daily Illini going under

[tornado]

The Daily Illini - the student newspaper on the University of Illinois' campus - has often given good coverage of athletics,
especially Illini basketball...
http://www.dailyillini.com/index.ph...basketball_looking_for_spark_in_final_stretch

They have operated continually for 141 years...but...
They are in serious danger of folding due to financial problems...
They owe $250K to their printer and don't have the money to pay - even enlisting the help of some famous alumni including Roger Ebert...

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/arti...o-help-keep-cash-strapped-daily-illini-afloat

Note the latest approach...
"The Daily Northwestern, which is also losing money, is talking with the
university about possibly receiving funds from a new student activity fee"

Hmmm... in other words - tax the folks and take the money from them whether they want to give or not - .....doesn't this destroy the concept of a free press?
But this isn't a new concept - plenty of people think the government should support the press financially...
http://uiswcmsweb.prod.lsu.edu/manship/ReillyCenter/files/item25405.pdf
http://oregoncatalyst.com/3305-35-billion-media-bailout-tax-plan.html

 

[abesimpson]

That's too bad. But I doubt they'll fold completely, they'll probably resort to an every-other day or weekly paper instead of a daily, reduce the amount of color pages, or reduce the size of the paid student staff. This article mentions 200-300 paid and unpaid students, which is a huge staff plus, 12 paid non-students. The BU Scout puts out a weekly paper with less than 2 dozen paid students, a varying amount of non-paid staffers (usually less than 2 dozen), and 1 non-student adviser who may get a yearly stipend (I'm not sure anymore) for comparison. Most college newspapers are not dailies, and only the large state schools can usually afford those.

It is important that the school newspapers stay financially independent from their university so they can maintain some editorial control and not just write PR for the university.

As for the student activity fees, those aren't really a tax. And incoming students have no choice but to pay them. However, the fee is only raised by a vote of student organization leaders and there is a review committee that doles out the funds, so students have the ability to vote against increases or at least request a piece of the pie. At BU (and I assume most other places), that money goes to intramural sports, other student clubs and organizations, ACBU for musical acts, speakers, entertainers, and I think the little bit of the money the Scout gets comes from there as well (well more than 3 quarters is from ads). But it's up to the students to go enjoy the things their fees are paying for, including the free copies of Scout around campus. As long as a student newspaper is non-profit, comprised mostly of students, and giving away free copies of their newspaper, it's really no different than any other student organization that's using money from fees.

Here is a Scout article about the latest fee increase: http://www.bradleyscout.com/news/students-support-activity-fee-increase/

 

[Old Coach]

They should quit printing and just go strictly with on-line and smart phone content.

 

[ACBL]

.
As for the student activity fees, those aren't really a tax. ..

...if not then they are so close as to satisfy the very definition of "tax"..

tax: a compulsory financial contribution imposed by a government or ruling body to raise revenue, levied on the income or property of persons or organizations, on the production costs or sales prices of goods and services, etc

: a charge usually of money imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes b : a sum levied on members of an organization to defray expenses

if students MUST unwillingly pay an obligatory fee and then the ruling authority gives it to whom they choose, then how is this not a tax?

 

[abesimpson]

...if not then they are so close as to satisfy the very definition of "tax"..

tax: a compulsory financial contribution imposed by a government or ruling body to raise revenue, levied on the income or property of persons or organizations, on the production costs or sales prices of goods and services, etc

: a charge usually of money imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes b : a sum levied on members of an organization to defray expenses

if students MUST unwillingly pay an obligatory fee and then the ruling authority gives it to whom they choose, then how is this not a tax?

Tax or fee, it's splitting hairs. I say not a tax because the committee that raises and distributes the fee is not any ruling authority of any kind, especially at BU. It's not for public purpose, at least not in the sense of the general public in any way, it's only for BU students. It's also not levied by income amount or production or sales of good and services, everyone pays the same amount. If the obligatory fee to attend the private university is a tax, then so is tuition (which is another obligatory fee for attendance determined by the ruling body for expenses).

But it's really just semantics. What I meant was it's not like a tax for a specific purpose (building a road, hiring policemen, ect) at BU. There's some usual things, but every year can have different groups making new requests for funds. And it's not a tax in the sense that regular taxpayers of Peoria have to fund something for BU. At least the students get some say in what the money goes towards, probably a lot more say than any of us has in what Illinois or the Federal government does with our money.

 

[Bravesfan]

The Daily Illini - the student newspaper on the University of Illinois' campus - has often given good coverage of athletics,
especially Illini basketball...
http://www.dailyillini.com/index.ph...basketball_looking_for_spark_in_final_stretch

They have operated continually for 141 years...but...
They are in serious danger of folding due to financial problems...
They owe $250K to their printer and don't have the money to pay - even enlisting the help of some famous alumni including Roger Ebert...

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/arti...o-help-keep-cash-strapped-daily-illini-afloat

Note the latest approach...
"The Daily Northwestern, which is also losing money, is talking with the
university about possibly receiving funds from a new student activity fee"

Hmmm... in other words - tax the folks and take the money from them whether they want to give or not - .....doesn't this destroy the concept of a free press?
But this isn't a new concept - plenty of people think the government should support the press financially...
http://uiswcmsweb.prod.lsu.edu/manship/ReillyCenter/files/item25405.pdf
http://oregoncatalyst.com/3305-35-billion-media-bailout-tax-plan.html

That's too bad this happened, but very symbolic with the way the basketball team has imploded!

I doubt Roger Ebert will be able to save this paper. He just shut down his new PBS movie review show because they did not obtain enough sponsorship to keep that show going. So I doubt he will have the money to keep the paper going, though I don't know his worth, especially after all the health issues he's gone through.

 

[tornado]

The Daily Illini seems to be doing OK so far.....
but here's a similar story at Mizzou.....

up 'til now the University of Missouri has given $400,000 subsidy every year to their campus newspaper's publisher, the "University of Missouri Press" (which also puts out other publications including a respected magazine called "The Misosuri Review") and obviously it comes from taxpayers...

SUDDENLY - a couple weeks back - the University's PRESIDENT has decided it's time to be a little more responsible with the University's money and has announced the subsidy is ending...
the newspaper (& other publications) will have to stand on it's own......

Well, as you might imagine there's a tremendous UPROAR among people who have cried foul and claim this is unfair and destroying a FREE PRESS!!!
...LOL - but it's NOT a free press if they expect the school or unwitting taxpayers to hand over money...
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/...iversity-of-missouri-shutting-down-press.html
http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2012/jun/01/wolfe-explains-um-press-decision-says-better/

 

[Buesch N Chips]

I agree with Old Coach. I got the DI every day for four years down there, but keeping a print version alive and operating in the red just doesn't make any sense.

Times are changing. Not sure what the future holds for how we get our news.

 

[bert notorius]

huh...a free newspaper that's losing money. maybe we can hold a bake sale...

 

[tornado]

We have the same thing at SIU...
the campus newspaper lost $200,000 last year...

The Daily Egyptian asked the SIU Board of Trustees to impose a $9 fee on every student PER SEMESTER!!! (enrollment is almost 18,000, including almost 4,000 post-grad)
..just a little simple math means this $9 fee per semester would result in well over $200,000 per year!
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...8_1_student-fee-student-newspaper-eric-fidler
http://thesouthern.com/news/local/s...cle_671835c7-755e-550b-bcbc-354a5d1fb9e5.html

"Like newspapers everywhere, the Daily Egyptian has been struggling financially."

thus far the Board of Trustees has postponed their vote on this issue - they have neither said yes or no....
but should citizens be TAXED just to support a newspaper?
There's tons of private businesses, ventures, etc...that are struggling financially - how far do we go in making hard working people have to pay for them just because they live there or choose to go to school there?
Aren't people taxed enough?

A broader question - why are newspapers that have survived 100 and even 200 years now struggling and failing?
Is it perhaps as simple as the same answer for why people don't buy 78 RPM records, play with hula hoops, and drive horses & buggies?
Times have changed and newspapers have stayed the same. But worse - the outdated, biased coverage that is offered is what people are saying loudly they DON'T want to pay for any more - this is the way the free market works. But newspapers and their people seem to have a strange concept of themselves - that they are a necessity even if people don't think so they are both unwilling to change and unwilling to accept their own failure as their own fault.

 

[Da Coach]

The Daily Egyptian, unlike the Bradley Scout and most campus newspapers, is a daily newspaper (though they recently reduced to Monday-Thursday only) I suspect 100% of students have computers and internet access, so unlike community and city newspapers, every target reader can access the Daily Egyptian "newspaper" online. So why does this newspaper still publish a printed version at all?

The article gives this excuse-
Trustees have suggested the Daily Egyptian printing weekly or move to an online-only format, but Freivogel said those are not viable options because online ads only sell for one-eighth the price of print ads.

But since the great majority of expenses come from the newsprint, ink, printing process, and distribution, it is likely that continuing the print version just for the extra revenue from the print ads only causes the newspaper to go deeper in debt. This sounds like it is more about maintaining the status quo and trying to fool others into paying for it, rather than a sensible solution that will come eventually anyway.