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Money woes lead to Lantern concerns for OSU

By Lisa Scott

Newspapers are in trouble. Reports show the industry has been in a state of decline for a number of years, causing some to fear there will be a limited demand for print in the future.

According to a national survey conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and Press, readership of newspapers has not increased in two years.

"This is the first time in roughly 15 years that fewer than half of all Americans report reading a daily paper on a regular basis."

Here at home, the trend is all too evident.

The Lantern, Ohio State's student newspaper, announced it would cease production during the summer months in order to prevent the paper from losing money — losses which the paper itself projects at over $150,000 for this year.

Dan McDonald, professor in the School of Communication, said the reason for the paper's summer hiatus was strictly financial and had nothing to do with low readership.

According to the Lantern, circulation for the paper decreased approximately 50 percent over the past two years, moving from 28,000 to 15,000.

The drop in circulation stemmed from an increase in the amount of daily returns on the paper, which sometimes exceeded 10 percent.

"At that time, college officials said we needed to either cut personnel or newsprint, so we decided to cut newsprint first to reduce the loss in revenue," said Ray Catalino, former Business Manager for the Lantern.

The cuts saved the paper approximately $25,000 annually; however, that method was only a temporary fix to the financial problem.

The next option presented was cutting the summer edition — a decision that was opposed by much of the Lantern's professional staff.

According to previous statements to the Lantern, Catalino said he thinks two things will result from the summer cut: producing a smaller newspaper or losing it completely.

Alternative plans were proposed to the School of Communication in January, but officials were said to be unreceptive.

Further, even if cutting the summer paper might save money, it could cost the paper advertising revenue during the academic year, Catalino said

"The Lantern's absence will just benefit other publications," he said. "Papers like UWeekly have already gained a few of the advertisers that we can't satisfy, particularly because we don't have a summer publication."

Based upon the current state of the paper, many say they are concerned about its presence on the OSU campus.

"[The Lantern] seems to be going in the direction of extinction," he said. "How and if someone changes the current business model will determine the future of the paper."

However, McDonald said that the current situation should not warrant much concern.

"If you look at the Lantern, it's got a 125 year history, and it's done all sorts of things," he said. "During WWII it was an afternoon paper with an all female staff. It's gone through periods where it was a weekly and periods where it was a monthly…It's just at another point in history where it changes."

Cutbacks lead to mass resignation and money woes

Change will definitely take place this upcoming year as the paper enters fall quarter with a new advisor, student editorial staff, and even a new professional team.

The summer cut has had a domino effect on many aspects of the paper, but one of the most unexpected was the mass resignation of the Lantern business staff.

"They thought they could save money by having all of us not working during the summer," Catalino said. "It was decided that we would all end our jobs in June and start back in September…and they would be saving 25 percent from our salaries."

However, plans turned sour when seven members of the Lantern business staff — approximately 75 percent — decided they would not return for the upcoming school year, placing the paper in yet another financial slump.

Catalino says the paper is now losing more money than before because they must now pay severance to the former workers for at least several months.

Tom O' Hara, the newly appointed Director of News and Operations, said this should not prove to be a problem. He said most of the staff had been replaced and the issues are being resolved through ongoing initiatives.

"We're going to have a larger student sales staff, so we're going to try to generate more revenue than we have in the past, just simply by being more aggressive on our sales efforts."

It's all on the web

Newspaper circulation is falling across the country. In the age of the internet many papers are finding it hard to capture and maintain readers, particularly because today's generation is living fast-paced and hi-tech lifestyles. By allowing readers access to breaking news and interactive features, the web is luring in advertisers and former fans of print.

"We used to have, like, five different newspapers in our dorm. They were free, but people didn't really pick them up," said Amber Ballard. "If we want to find out something we just read the paper online."

So what does this mean for the Lantern?

O' Hara said it means more time will be put into developing the online edition of the paper.

The Lantern has employed a new online editor and an assistant online editor for the upcoming school year, and hopes to improve the quality of that medium.

"We're going to devote a little more resources to getting stories up quicker on the online edition," he said.

However, Catalino believes this further proves his point that the Lantern, in its paper form, will cease to exist in the near future.

"I think the goal of the school of communication is to eliminate the Lantern entirely from print and convert it to an electronic form. The problem with that — as I view it — is you can't generate money with just an electronic product."

Appealing to student interests

O'Hara said he doesn't believe cutting the summer paper will affect the student reaction to the Lantern this fall, and believes students will resume their previous relationship with the paper when school begins.

"There are about 50,000 students from September to May, and only 10,000 during the summer," O' Hara said. "When the campus is crawling with students again, they'll be as eager to pick up the Lantern as they were before, particularly because they weren't even here during the summer when the boxes were empty."

However, although the Lantern is known as the student voice of OSU, many students feel it doesn't appeal to students' interests.

"I don't really read the Lantern that often, because it doesn't really interest me," said junior Ryan Peoples. "It's kind of boring sometimes, because it just has a lot of stuff about student government and formal business stuff."

O' Hara said these issues will be addressed this year, and he hopes the quality of the Lantern will be significantly higher in the upcoming school year.

"The Lantern does substantial basic coverage of the university governmental structure and the police, but I'd like to lighten it up a little and have a little more fun with what really interests a large number of the student body," he said. "It's not our intention to turn it into a tabloid; we want to do high quality serious work, but also want it to make it more entertaining."

Journalism at Ohio State

Due to issues that have risen throughout the journalism program since the loss of accreditation in 2000, some now have a wayward perspective on what the program has and will become.

"There is some misperception of what's going on in the journalism program, and we're looking at the curriculum this year for some potential signs of change in it," McDonald said.

However, many say that students — and the Lantern — should not have to suffer. Steve Wartenberg, a former Advisor for the Lantern, said that if the program is open to more students the Lantern will get better.

"They desperately need to get students taking courses as freshmen. By keeping them waiting until they're juniors it makes it really difficult to get clips for internships in time, and they're usually at a huge disadvantage to journalism students at other schools," said Steve Wartenberg, former Lantern Advisor.

"They need less of these theory courses on communication and more actual journalism writing classes, where students write more and do more multimedia things."

O' Hara said this issue is being addressed, and that the Lantern is working to recruit as aggressively as possible to get more people into the program and onto the staff.

"We've been talking about making it easier to get into the practicum class," he said. "Before there were a lot of prerequisites and we're thinking about waiving a lot of them."

However, despite obstacles, OSU journalism students have persevered, and many say their efforts are what have kept the paper alive.

"Other than this summer, I have to give a lot of credit to the editors; that despite a lot of obstacles, I think they've really, really worked hard. Took a lot of pride and put out a really good product," said Wartenberg.

"I mean every quarter you start off with a brand new staff of 45 who have absolutely no experience, and the editors do an amazing job of helping prepare those students and get the paper out."

Originally Published: August 20, 2008

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