Newspaper readership program presented to ASUSU
A program that would make hundreds of copies of daily newspapers readily available to Utah State University students was presented to the Associated Students of USU, Tuesday.
The USA Today Collegiate Readership Program, if implemented, would provide copies of newspapers like The Salt Lake Tribune, The Herald Journal and USA Today to students in high-activity areas of campus.
While the machines that would distribute the papers would not require money, the program would require an increase in student fees, as high as $5 per student, per semester.
ASUSU made no decisions regarding the presentation Tuesday night. ASUSU President Duke Di Stefano moved to create an ad hoc committee with members of the executive council. Di Stefano appointed Education Senator Jennifer Minchey as the committee head.
The presentation was made by Doug Fraser, USA Today’s manager for national education sales and Shai Curtis, also from the newspaper.
Fraser said the program has been successfully implemented at more than 250 other campuses nationwide, including Penn State, Kansas State, Kansas and Nebraska.
Prior to implementing the program on campus, there is the option to use a pilot program for four weeks, where three different daily newspapers will be made available to students, for free.
Therein lies the problem, said Gabe White, senator from the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.
“If you give students the paper for free at first, they’re going to want to continue to do it, nobody can turn down free,” White said. “The perception to students, after you’ve been giving them the paper, is that you’re taking something away.”
White said the pilot program is nothing but a marketing tool, Fraser did not disagree.
Fraser said the purpose of the program is to make a daily newspaper available to students who would not otherwise read a paper. He said he acknowledged that any student could put 50 cents into a vending machine and pick up their own paper, but by making the papers readily available throughout campus, everyone would have the opportunity to read.
Fraser stressed the program as beneficial, with a cost.
“It’s not a small program, it’s impactful, but the schools that have done it haven’t regretted it,” Fraser said.
He said of the 250 schools currently participating in the program, none of them have exceeded a total cost of $5 per student, per semester.
Part of the appeal of the program, Fraser said, is that the school will only pay for the amount of papers students actually use.
“If 15 percent of your enrollment reads one paper per day, after 150 class days in your year, if one paper is 35 cents and the other is 25 cents, that’s $120,000,” he said. “Maybe you look at a $7 or $8 fee.”
Fraser said the price of newspapers he cited were based on an educational discounted price the school would receive, with the USA Today papers costing 35 cents apiece, and Herald Journal and Salt Lake Tribune papers costing 25 cents.
Some council members, like Graduate Studies Vice President Stephanie Kukic, voiced support for Fraser’s presentation.
“I would pay the $5 for the chance to have three different newspapers every day,” Kukic said. “I would get local, I would get state and I would get national perspectives.”
Kukic said she is not a sports fan, but she is still required to pay the student fee for sports. She said having these newspapers available would be a purely academic thing, something her constituents would enjoy. While saying she fully supported the program, Kukic said ASUSU needs to see what the campus as a whole wants first.
Student Advocate Vice President Les Essig also voiced support for the presentation. Essig also brought up the issue of athletic fees and said there is not a fee out there that everybody wants.
“Do we believe that Logan is at a point where we are in a bubble?” Essig said. “Do we want to give our students the opportunity to explore outside media?
“I think it’s a great opportunity,” he said.
White said he believes Kukic is right, saying that if she wanted to pay her money for a newspaper, she should be able to. He said the students who didn’t want a paper, however, shouldn’t be forced to.
“This argument is about freedom. It is about choice. It’s about force,” White said.
He said a survey should be given to students to see how they feel about the issue. In his presentation, Fraser said there is a survey they ran on other campuses to gauge support for the program, but White said the questions in Fraser’s survey seemed too biased.
“If we’re allowed to do a scientific poll, approved to be scientific by the political science faculty and the faculty that teaches statistics, and it comes back that this is something the students want to pay $5 a semester for, then I’ll be the first one to support it,” White said.
He said the major issue is telling students the papers are free, and then charging for them.
“When something is not free, and we tell the students that it is free, we’re lying,” White said. “That’s not what I got elected for. I ran on the platform of being the voice of the students.”