On March 1, in Austin at a meeting of the Texas Student Media board, there will be a discussion about cutting publication days of the 113-year-old Daily Texan, always one of the best collegiate papers in the U.S.
Okay, you say, some non-student papers are moving to reduced publication. But those drastic steps are taken after exhaustive study, and after all has been done to keep print alive, and after there is a detailed, thought-out plan to prosper with a strong digital strategy. Months of study and planning.
Has the UT administration, or Texas Student Media, the governing board, or – most importantly – the School of Communication at UT – done that type of review?
I’m told on a recent Friday there was ONE ad in the print paper. How is that even possible? Shouldn’t the first question be, why can’t we sell ads in a student publication on a Friday, with a captive audience of about 50,000? Not, should we cut publication days.
I maintain a listserv of about 50 people from the long-ago period, when The Daily Texan was truly an independent newspaper on campus, supported only by ads and a portion of the student “blanket tax” which basically covered a few dollars per student as a circulation cost. When time came to renew that independent charter, the Board of Regents refused, because we had been a thorn in their side – as newspapers, student or otherwise, sometime are in the course of “doing journalism.” They eliminated our funding, we hunkered down, sued, fought for our publishing life, lost in court — and the result is the current organizational structure. Walter Cronkite signed our petition back then, as did FCC Chairman Nicholas Johnson. Cronkite even came to a party at the apartment of friend Mark Sims, now at the LA Times, to show his support.
With this situation, there is an underlying question of “why,” with at least three potential answers.
Each person can make his own decision. Is the current squabble simply due to the afflictions facing the newspaper industry overall? Or is it an opening to corral a the student press at UT? Or poor business management?
Make it four potential answers – a little bit of all?
On our listserv you find a former publisher of The Wall Street Journal, a former member of the Board of Regents, lobbyists, college professors, authors, editors and reporters at big metros (The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, etc.) and small community papers, lawyers, doctors, columnists and others…people who have made an impact. They all still support the student paper where they learned the trade and life lessons, and many financially support UT.
Several of us in the group, including myself, have careers built around helping media companies successfully transition to digital, and build a business model long-term that focuses on digital.
I must ask: has real-world work been done to get The Daily Texan ready for a digital life? Is all the creativity of a college campus, all the experience of the alums being tapped?
UT’s School of Communication and administration could lead the way with that real-world effort to make the student paper and students digitally savvy, and provide content, fresh and updated, via many delivery methods. And make money on digital.
At a Daily Texan that the board and administration say is cash-starved now, digital money is being passed up daily.
Here is my free advice to the School of Communication, TSM board, the UT administration and the students and ex-students working to build a plan in advance of the March 1 meeting.
1. On March 1 table the question of trimming publication, for now anyway. Leave it alone for now, and examine why ad sales are so dismal, and you can’t blame declining readership because it’s a captive audience. Go for every dollar you can from print while it is still an option. Build a real plan to transition from print to digital, not a helter-skelter, lop-off-a-day-ever-so-often-to-save-money approach.
2. Develop a true digital plan for The Daily Texan. This is not rocket science, and it’s not difficult, and it’s free to UT because plenty of people who work in this area would assist.
3. Embrace the ex-student support effort that is forming, among several decades of UT graduates.
Lastly, why do I care, other than I had a lot of fun and learned a lot there a while back?
I care because I work in an industry looking for answers and solutions; industry leaders today know that some of those answers can come from those coming out of college today.
And though UT-Austin/ TDT is the current lightning rod for discussion, this is an issue for the collegiate press in general.
Where’s the future for the industry if the communication and j-schools and universities don’t prepare those students for a digital future, while preserving print cash flow as long as possible?
Walter Cronkite lends support to The Daily Texan in earlier free press fight. Photo courtesy of LA Times friend Mark Sims, who hosted Walter at his apartment, and kept his unwashed drink glass for decades.