Editorial: Dorm tenants should reject corporate media

Students on the Hill should vote against the huge media
corporations that are asking UCLA to subsidize their efforts to
expand readership and increase advertising revenue.

After being rejected by students two years ago, the newspaper
readership program is back: Through an online ballot next week,
dormitory residents will decide whether to add $9 annually to their
housing fees in return for copies of USA Today and The New York
Times being placed throughout their living space. It seems fair
enough: Pay a little and get newspapers in return. But the reality
of the situation is more complex.

Papers like USA Today and The New York Times are able to claim
thousands more readers when they set advertising rates, based on
the increased circulation they get from readership programs across
the country. The question is this: Why should students already
facing increases in student fees and housing costs subsidize the
business efforts of corporations that should compete for student
business like anyone else?

If USA Today and The New York Times want to, let them target
individual students as they look to improve their readership and
revenue. Let them compete with each other and with the Los Angeles
Times, which sells subscriptions on this campus. But don’t
let them enter the market this way, with a vote that will require
every student on the Hill to pay even if the student isn’t
reading the paper.

If students approve the program, they eventually will forget the
fee is built into their housing fees. Students will eventually
perceive the papers as “free” ““ even though
they’re still paying for them as part of an itemized list on
their housing bill. This is why the program’s proponents have
returned to campus two years after they tried to gather support the
first time: They’re depending on students’ short-term
memory, and they’re depending on students two years from now
not even to know the difference.

Even for students who favor the program, the number of papers on
the stands would be smaller than the number of people living in the
dorms ““ those paying for individual copies. Is that fair? The
corporations backing this initiative aren’t altruistic.
They’re hoping students will stick around as customers,
subscribing at regular rates after they move out of the dorms.

Student media programs across the country are seriously
concerned with the unrelenting attempts of national corporations to
establish these footholds in university communities. Kathy
Lawrence, the College Media Association president and director of
student media at the University of Texas, Austin, wrote about these
programs in a recent newsletter: “Go to just about any
gathering of college newspaper advisers and mention the phrase
College Readership Program, and you’ll hear a collective
groan, not from every corner of the room, perhaps, but certainly in
most of the room.”

Student media outlets are wary of competing with professional
papers, especially as many student media publications are not
subsidized by student fees ““ as the professional papers would
be. Student newspapers worry about declining readership and
dropping advertising revenue because national advertisers might see
less value in advertising with college papers.

And that should worry the campus at large. Despite their many
flaws, campus newspapers are invaluable and unique resources to
readers. The Daily Bruin, for example, covers UCLA’s small
sports teams while other Los Angeles newspapers don’t.
Readers rarely can learn of an on-campus concert or lecture from
the Los Angeles Times, but The Bruin covers such events regularly.
With gargantuan budgets, USA Today and The New York Times can scour
the globe for stories, but they don’t hold together
university communities like campus newspapers. They just
can’t capture the campus Zeitgeist.

There are dozens of reasons to reject this initiative. Students
who won’t read the papers to begin with should vote against
it, as should students who believe in the educational value of
student media. Students who believe these newspapers should compete
for the coed market should vote against it because the readership
program discourages competition. And students who believe their
student fees should go to necessary services instead of extras
should vote against it.

Students stand to be taken advantage of. The media corporations
behind this effort aren’t doing them a favor by offering
their papers at a low cost per person. They’re trying to
increase their own profits, at students’ expense, and each of
those apparently “low-cost” papers is implicated in
this effort.