Print is Dead
From today’s Daily Campus:
The Board of Directors of Student Media Company voted yesterday to continue the suspension of Friday print editions of the paper for the Spring 2010 semester. While we had hoped that we would be able to bring Friday editions back to the newsstands next spring, the economy’s downturn still affects us. Declining advertising revenues have made producing a Friday print edition of The Daily Campus financially unviable.
Disclaimer: I wrote it. And I added a reference to Evita.
The DC suspended the Friday print product at the end of Spring 2009. It was a sad day for me, and I hope the rest of the staff (but truth be told, I can’t quite remember how everyone reacted). We’d been hanging onto the “daily” in our name by publishing four times a week. Then we were down to three.
Would we have to change our name back to the Semi-Weekly Campus? For a while, it seemed plausible to me.
Well, we’re continuing the three-day print schedule. The economy just isn’t in the right place. It’s a shame considering that most college newspapers are fairing pretty well compared to our professional counterparts. After all, our niche has already been established. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Fall 2010 is the magic semester where we can bring Friday issues back.
The good news: our new Web site. The Internet may have caused all the “Print is Dead!” hullabaloo, but we can publish on the Web for free and as often as we’d like.
Now if only we could figure out how to monetize it.
