Only 7 percent of students on campus knew the paper existed
It’s not just big-name newspapers that are starting to feel financial pressures. A community college in the Pacific Northwest recently cut its support for the campus newspaper, in part because, according to a school official, “most young people don’t read papers.”
Central Oregon Community College cut funding for its campus paper, The Broadside, a publication on which it had been spending tens of thousands of dollars per year. The Broadside has been around for 65 years, The Bend Bulletin reports, making it one of the school’s longest-running institutions. But that wasn’t enough to save it from decreasing readership and a diminishing staff.
The college paid approximately $85,000 dollars to keep the paper operating: a part-time advisor had an annual salary of $50,000 with benefits and the paper’s operations cost around $35,000, which came from student fees.
Spokesman Rob Paradis told The Bulletin: “Journalism’s changing and most young people don’t read papers. Therefore, the thought of writing for one isn’t something that’s as popular as it used to be.”
The Oregonian reports that there was a general disinterest in the paper prior to the defunding. A 2014 campus survey found that over half of students didn’t know the paper existed, and only 7 percent reported reading it consistently. There are about 16,500 students enrolled at the community college’s Bend campus.
The paper’s staff had also shrunk considerably to just 10 students. Katya Agatuccia, a student who served as the final editor-in-chief of the paper during the spring 2017 term, told The Bulletin that she was the only active reporter on the staff at that time.
According to The Oregonian, the funds for the newspaper may still contribute toward journalism on the campus:
A task force recommended to the administration that The Broadside adviser’s salary should go toward an adjunct faculty member who would teach journalism classes. Anyone writing for the paper would need to enroll in a one-credit journalism lab, and any editor would have to be enrolled in or have completed a three-credit journalism class, the panel suggested.
Read The Bulletin‘s report here.
(h/t: Student Press Law Center)
IMAGE: Shutterstock
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