Let’s be real here: Cutting three out of the Carletonian’s 24 print issues is unlikely to make a significant dent in the paper’s operations or its environmental footprint. Likewise, a $2,000 reduction or reallocation is far from being a notable step when it comes to helping the Carleton Student Association (CSA) optimize its $1 million budget.
However, if recent cuts are potential indications of further ones, it’s important to seriously consider what cutting print issues — either substantially or entirely — would mean for a student newspaper like the Carletonian.
During my freshman and sophomore years at Carleton, I spent most of my terms as a viewpoint editor for this paper. During my tenure, the Carletonian was centrally reliant on its weekly print issues. Although we experimented with using the website for some breaking news content, it served mostly as a minor complement to the paper’s normal publishing.
After two years at Carleton, I transferred to Duke, where I was part of the Duke Chronicle’s opinion section. At The Chronicle, we relied primarily on our online platform: The paper had largely transitioned away from print issues during the pandemic, and instead rapidly expanded its digital presence. Now, special print editions are made only during notable campus events and commemorations.
It is easy to observe the success and surface-level convenience of online platforms and assume that a print-reliant paper like the Carletonian should be able to go digital without a hitch. Some can make a valid argument that the paper is better off in the long-term if it does so. But as someone who has spent a great amount of time working in both print and digital models, I believe such a transition — when it is forced and when it is done with insufficient resources — can be an existential threat to a student newspaper.
Firstly, good digital content production platforms still cost money. Typical website builders like Wix may not be well-suited for the pace and scale of content published by student newspapers. The platform must possess several functionalities: It must allow users to adjust interfaces, hold storage for a large amount of data, have enough bandwidth for user traffic, among others. The pricing page for the platform that The Chronicle uses — SNWorks — states that services can cost up to $450 per month.
But let’s assume that the amount of funding for a quality website platform is still less expensive compared to print issues. Bigger issues remain.
Converting from a print to digital model would fundamentally alter the way a student newspaper conducts its workstream. Yes, publishing online can save time for editors, who no longer have to worry about formatting articles on InDesign. But that time saved would be promptly reoccupied by the complex tasks that come with spearheading (close to) daily, rather than weekly, publishing timelines.
On one hand, the ease of online access can establish new expectations to publish breaking news day-of, exerting a considerable amount of time-based turnaround pressure on editors and staff. On the other hand, writers may paradoxically be more inclined to perpetually delay their deadlines, as they no longer face the urgency of turning something in before it gets sent to the presses. Indeed, the latter was precisely what caused my high school student newspaper to collapse once it transitioned from print to digital.
At a college like Carleton — where the speed of a 10-week term makes extracurricular commitments atypically overwhelming — weekly deadlines facilitated by the print issues is an indispensable component to preserving consistency and structure. This is especially relevant because of Carleton’s smaller student body, which entails a limited writer pool. Strategies used by larger, semester-system universities for writer recruitment, retention and publication pace may simply be inapplicable.
Furthermore, there is a real risk that the visibility of the paper will be diminished — rather than empowered — with a transition to digital. Placing print copies of the Carletonian around campus locations with high foot traffic, such as Sayles, is a surefire way of gaining a range of casual readership. However, in our congested digital information environment, developing a reliable reader base for content published online is possible, but an arduous process. Community members having to make a conscious choice to check the Carletonian website for articles is markedly different from catching a glimpse of a front page while walking to class.
Finally, and more abstractly, I believe that having the option of print issues can potentially offer unique opportunities for speech under our current political environment. With the high profile case of Rumeysa Ozturk — and others — it is no longer a secret that the content of student publications can be rigorously surveilled. But articles published only in print issues are subject less to this risk precisely because of their non-digital form. This could provide an outlet for members of Carleton’s community to express their views to their peers, hopefully with a dampened fear of digital tracking by external forces.
As someone who has been away from Carleton’s campus over the past two years, I can no longer speak to the specific nuances of the Carletonian’s role in Carleton’s community, its relationship with CSA or other pieces of contexts that I may be missing. I recognize that I am now an outsider without full pieces to the story. Assuming neutral intentions, the CSA’s recent cuts may be as insignificant as the numbers suggest — it could just very well be a small part of cuts happening in all corners of student activities.
Regardless, these cuts come at a time of anxiety and precarity for student newspapers. In early April, a group of national student media organizations, such as the Associated Collegiate Press and the Student Press Law Center, released a media alert “never before issued” regarding the dangers posed to student media organizations by immigration enforcement. Moreover, student newspapers across the country have been plagued by a financial crisis. A simple Google search reveals a long list of student newspapers — from a wide range of colleges and universities— who have seen funding cuts, cash problems and other operational constraints.
I’d be the first to admit that student journalism (by nature of being student, not professional, journalism) is far from being flawless. Criticisms around a student newspaper’s coverage will always exist and should be expressed. But these imperfections should not result in complacency around the existence of student journalism itself. Student newspapers are key institutions when it comes to being a witness for a college’s history.
I remember that during my time at this college, the Carletonian provided structured documentation of Divest Carleton’s efforts to advocate for fossil fuel divestment. Its articles on the group’s protests, occupations and other actions will eventually become crucial archives. Even if the coverage wasn’t perfect, the articles were written when no other publication could’ve covered it — or, at least, not to the same level of detail that the Carletonian offered. And that means something.
In an ideal world, student newspapers are able to procure independent funding sources, which is necessary in theory to achieve full objectivity. That is unfortunately not a practically achievable reality for the vast majority of student newspapers, and so the existence of student journalism may very well hinge on the benevolence of college administrators and student government leaders.
But both the CSA and the Carletonian presumably believe in values of institutional accountability and campus transparency. The CSA can and should find productive ways to work with the Carletonian on achieving these parallel goals, especially in light of recent documented dangers to university funding, student speech and student autonomy as a whole. To put things bluntly, infighting among student-run institutions would be inappropriate for the current moment, and could ultimately leave the student community more vulnerable to pressures from both within and outside the College.
Whether intended or not, more severe budget cuts to the Carletonian’s print issues — without a mutually agreed upon alternative plan or sufficient time for transition — could be a serious existential threat to the paper. I would urge the CSA, and the College itself, to treat the Carletonian not as a budgetary burden or a source of reputational risk, but instead as a necessary partner in these times.