Campus News Options May Expand

In hopes of offering students expanded news resources, student government is considering the implementation of the USA Today Readership Program.

The program would offer access to three newspapers, including USA Today, The New York Times and a daily local paper to students in their residence halls.

Funding options are under discussion, but students could pay a fee each semester, possibly $5, for the distribution of 5,000 papers. The goal of the program is to make students aware of national and international current events, said Student Body President Jen Daum.

"Students get so entrenched in what goes on here on campus and get cut off from the outside world," she said.

The program is still in the planning stages, but officials said they are looking to implement something similar to an earlier attempt at extended news distribution, possibly by fall 2003.

In the fall 2000 semester, USA Today conducted a pilot program at UNC. Newspapers were distributed to four residence halls where students could pick them up every morning.

USA Today representative Christine Bannerman said the pilot was successful but the idea didn't catch on immediately.

USA Today recently re-established contact with UNC's student government to discuss putting the program into full effect. Whether the program moves forward "really depends on feedback from student government," Bannerman said.

Provost Robert Shelton said the decision to end the program was made because "the concerns raised outweighed the advantages."

It was not a good use of the University's dollars in a time of uncertainty for the budget, Shelton said, adding, "I don't know what could have changed in a year."

Gerry Hamilton, the general manager of The Daily Collegian at Pennsylvania State University, also has concerns about the repercussions of the program.

"The Readership Program caused a major disruption in distribution," he said. "Our major concern was in preserving circulation of the school paper."

The price tag to put out a revised paper to match the program's papers totaled nearly $180,000 per year for The Daily Collegian. "The goal of increasing readership is a good thing," Hamilton said. "But we had readership on campus long before the program began."

Some universities, such as the University of Texas-Austin, have turned down the program completely.

Issues they raised in opposition include Internet availability to other newspapers, extra charges to students and students' lack of time to read the extra newspapers.

Daum said the several schools contacted by student government, such as Duke University, liked the program and said Penn State is a minority in expressing opposition to the program.

She said, "I voiced my concerns to the employees of the readership program and was reassured that in no other place where the program exists have they had the same problems as those at Penn State."

The University Editor can be reached at udesk@unc.edu.