It’s a rough world out there for print media — believe us, we’ve been there. The Daily Illini announced today that they’ll be reducing their print publication to two days per week starting at the beginning of this coming Spring 2016 semester. Not only that, Illini Media announced that buzz Magazine will cease its weekly print publication, “printing its final issue March 18”.
Per the article:
The Daily Illini leadership announced Monday the publication will reduce print publications to two days a week when the semester begins on Jan. 19.
Print publications will only be distributed on Mondays and Thursdays beginning this spring. The decision was made in order to focus on The Daily Illini’s online content and social media outlets as well as to provide more in-depth content to its readers, according to Lilyan Levant, publisher and general manager of Illini Media Company.
“We believe this is an opportunity to devote more time and and resources to delivering outstanding content to our campus audience in real-time,” Levant wrote in a staff email. “The Daily Illini’s plans include more robust content both in print and online — more enterprise stories, features, campus life and culture, and additional special sections.”
It was also announced that Illini Media Company’s second publication, Buzz Magazine, will cease its weekly print publication at the beginning of spring break, printing its final issue March 18.
The moves come at a time when various collegiate publications, such as The Daily Kansan and the Oklahoma Daily, are reducing their print products’ frequency. The Daily Illini dropped its Friday publication in 2013.
Megan Jones, editor-in-chief of The Daily Illini, said that the goal of this change is to produce better and more accessible content for the students and Champaign-Urbana community.
“I am very optimistic in the direction we are heading in and think this will help us focus on our online presence. To our readers, hopefully, we will be more available to them and not less by publishing constantly on our website,” Jones wrote in a statement emailed internally Monday.
Print media, amirite?
Check out Boswell’s defense of the DI from last year.