David Lei | Feeling the pinch

Two weeks ago, The Daily Californian, the independent student newspaper at UC Berkeley, announced that it would suspend its Wednesday print edition. The Daily Orange, the paper at Syracuse, announced days later it would do the same for its Friday edition.

Many in college journalism - myself included - hoped that student papers would remain largely unaffected by the turmoil in news media. But apparently, when newsprint goes up 30 percent (again), everyone feels it.

These events have serious implications for all of us. Part of the problem is that traditional advertising has taken a sharp turn for the worse both nationally and locally.

The other, more significant issue is the rapidly changing patterns of news consumption driven by our generation. Over the past months, these trends have conspired to shake giants such as The New York Times.

And slowly but surely, they're shaking up independent student newspapers. The reality: Our generation didn't grow up with newspapers and we don't have a strong attachment to them.

It's unfortunate. The Drudges, Huffingtons and other bloggers of the future could never measure up to the Woodwards and Bernsteins.

And independent student newspapers have a humble but proud tradition of voicing campus opinion and holding administrations accountable.

Despite some recent troubles, I'm confident that student newspapers will keep this spirit alive. Like all of our peers, we're doing what's possible to keep students picking up the paper while encouraging them to visit our Web site.

And don't worry - you'll definitely find a new copy of our paper in the rackboxes tomorrow.

David Lei is a Wharton junior from Brooklyn, N.Y. and executive editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian. His e-mail is lei@dailypennsylvanian.com

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