Staff members are now charged annual dues —
in other words, they must pay to work there, said
Leah Glasser, the paper’s editor. They can avoid
the dues if they find an alumni sponsor or sell
enough advertising to cover it.
The paper has a web site, and Glasser and
her staff are slowly getting used to the new
monthly schedule.
“It’s so difficult to hear, ‘we don’t have enough
money,’” she said. “We hear that a lot. As a
generation, that doesn’t make us turn around
and go home.”
Newspapers like the Daily Orange and Daily Tar
Heel don’t take money from the university or
fellow students, believing that to be a conflict
of interest. Most publications do, however.
Tammy Merrett, faculty adviser to the Alestle
at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville,
doesn’t know how her paper would survive
without it.
Fat with slick ads taken out by military recruiters,
Planned Parenthood and local supermarkets,
the Alestle’s ad revenue was around $150,000 a
year in 2008. Now, the paper struggles to make
$30,000 a year in ad sales.
“At some universities, they have to approach
student government directly and ask for funds,
and there have been some instances where
student government doesn’t like the coverage,
so they deny it,” Merrett said. “Luckily, that
doesn’t happen here.”
Despite the worries, North Carolina’s Arrowood
says her experience makes her more interested
in a journalism career, not less. Her optimism
“comes from knowing that people still need
news, they still need information, and I’ve gotten