Hot off the Presses

Gawker wants to kill the college newspaper.

The argument is that college kids all have access to the internet, so why not just run an online edition? And college papers don't really make money, so what's the point. And even harsher:

"Print editions of college papers are either fully subsidized by advertising (which is getting harder, obviously), or they have some kind of endowment, or the university kicks in money to help them pay their expenses. Why not take that money and hire some laid-off journalists to teach these kids journalism? This way another former journalist would find a job, and janitors would have fewer things to pick up after entitled college kids, thereby cooling the simmering class war on campuses, leading to fewer administration buildings takeovers by young leftists channeling their rage into fair wage campaigns for university employees."

Ouch. Sure, university papers aren't going to rival the New York Times or the Washington Post for readership. Sure, young people aren't even reading those papers, much less their own. So why keep them around?

Um...SUDOKU?

Maybe at some schools all the kids take their laptops to class, but I sure didn't go to that school. In my day, we still had our pens and notebooks. And that meant you could be doing the crossword while your professor lectured about Beowulf.

Furthermore, a college newspaper is relevant to the particular people at that particular school at that particular time. While it might be just a "training ground," that doesn't mean the college paper doesn't add to the entire college experience overall. Online or in print, it's exciting to read a real newspaper about the issues that literally surround you alongside news about the outside world.

In defense of print, there's just something about the physical entity that I like. (Quoth the blogger.) I always check news online, but I prefer browsing a real newspaper.

The only real argument I'd make against the university paper would be that it's greener not to print so much paper. But I could also make that argument against the copy-shop packets I have to buy for classes every semester.

Frankly, I don't know what Gawker has against the college paper. Maybe it's not the best journalism or financially beneficial, but they provide students with an outlet to write/make art/share their opinions in a professional-looking environment.

And honestly, where would Rory Gilmore be without the Yale Daily News?