Splicetoday

Politics & Media
Aug 28, 2008, 05:47AM

Newspaper Epidemic Hits College Papers

The Daily Californian, one of the country's oldest independent student run papers, is cutting back a day from its print version to cope with higher costs and declining readership. Even though college papers serve a very specific community, they too are facing the crunch from online competition.

Starting next week, the 137-year-old Daily Californian will be cutting a day of publication, finding itself vulnerable to a national epidemic of reductions in print ad revenue.

On Wednesdays, the independent UC Berkeley student paper will only publish an online version as it feels the pinch of the financial crisis that is spreading to professional newspapers across the country.

The paper's management decided on the cut after the projected shortfall was more than $100,000, even after earlier reductions, said editor in chief and president Bryan Thomas. The paper's annual operating budget is nearly $1 million.

"There were warnings in the last few months," Thomas said. "It became clear in June that severe action was needed. Last spring all salaried positions took a temporary 10 percent cut."

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