Late in 2015, I wrote a column titled “In defense of the DI.” The scope of the article is pretty self-explanatory, but essentially, I see The Daily Illini as an integral part of the University of Illinois, and more broadly, the Champaign-Urbana community. What makes the DI so unique is its ability to create a functioning newsroom where students can learn the craft of journalism not just by sitting in front of a perhaps-disinterested lecturer, but rather from actual tangible reporting, writing and editing.
After writing this piece, I was thoroughly convinced that the DI was one of the best things, not just in town, but in the entire country. The resources it can provide to students who seek to pursue professional journalism are monumental, and as such, it is a very necessary component. Thus, earlier this week, when Illini Media Company announced that it was only going to print The Daily Illini for two days a week starting in January and was totally ending the printing of buzz Magazine starting March of this coming semester, I was taken aback.
Of course I understand the world we live in – anyone from my generation knows that we’re way more likely to spend hours embroiled in our Facebook feeds rather than thumbing through each day’s edition of the paper. It’s evident that the digital revolution has cast away many aspects of high-quality journalism as we once knew it. I mean hell, one can only read ten New York Times articles a month before they’re blocked from their site, and even The News-Gazette here in town has started to institute surveys before articles as a way of generating income off of internet readership. All the while, Buzzfeed reaps massive amounts of traffic off of misleading headlines, countless meaningless lists and frivolous “news”.
If one thing is a clear takeaway from this, it’s that all news is shifting to electronic media, and journalistic entities that rely on print profits and ad sales are faltering and being forced to scramble for new ways to make ends meet, even in Champaign, Illinois. They’re trying to completely shift industries very quickly, and as such, sudden and drastic changes are necessary. In the case of the DI, we can see this very clearly on a micro scale.
What’s so unfortunate about this, however, is not the shift towards digital platforms or the rise of click-bait “journalism,” but rather the group that it will affect the most: students, the very group that the DI exists for in the first place. By reducing the amount that the DI prints, Illini Media is also reducing the nearly intangible experience of putting together a printed publication each day. The editing crunches, the strict deadlines, the perfect designing of a newspaper page – all things that every student worker at the DI in recent memory knows far too well.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m sure the shift to a more online-based publication will still involve good journalism, and I’m sure the DI will still produce a plethora of important content for the campus community. What I am saying, however, is that when the major aspect of any company is all of a sudden flipped on its head, as it was for buzz and The Daily Illini this week, the experience, the environment and the final product all ultimately will change. How good or bad that change is remains to be seen, but will probably be evident fairly quickly.
While it’s certainly understandable why Illini Media is ceasing the printing of buzz Magazine and partially stopping the printing of The Daily Illini, it’s saddening nonetheless. The resource that the University of Illinois once had, where students were forced to work in and manage their own fully functioning print newspaper environment is really unique, and taught countless numbers of students what a proper print journalism entity should function as, both internally and externally. I’m sure the DI and buzz will beef up their online publishing practices – and that’s important, especially in 2016, but it’s not the same, nor as it impressive and unique as burning through five issues a week, as they did for my time in college.
Please don’t misconstrue my point – I hope the DI succeeds in providing the news to the student population via digital avenues, I really do. I’ll just always be nostalgic for my Freshman year of college, when I would pick up a DI every day at lunch and actually sit down at the table and open up the paper, it’s pages constantly competing with my plate of food for attention.
Maybe some day, journalistic entities like the DI will have so much money from online readership that they’ll be able to re-institute daily printing, but until then, I’ll just listen to Stevie Nicks and think about how the world’s changing.
(Photo by Yelp.com)