As budget hearings approach, The Aggie is concerned about potentially severe cuts to our budget
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
As our readers know, The California Aggie is the independent, student-run newspaper at UC Davis. The paper’s primary role is to provide an accurate, fair news resource for the campus and local community as a whole. Without the university providing a journalism program, The Aggie’s presence is also the only opportunity for students to gain hands-on experience in professional journalism.
Our talented staff of over 100 students — including writers, designers, photographers and layout artists — work on tight deadlines to create a weekly print product for the UC Davis campus, Downtown Davis and local businesses. At the time of publication, the paper is held in The Avid Reader, Newsbeat, Pachamama, Philz Coffee and Temple Coffee Roasters, as well as 30+ other racks within the city and campus.
However, our ability to provide quality, unbiased journalism is currently hanging in the balance amid pending Associated Students of UC Davis (ASUCD) budget hearings. While The Aggie maintains editorial independence, our operations are largely funded by the ASUCD Senate.
ASUCD Senate and budget:
The Senate is the student body government at UC Davis that manages an over $20 million operational budget — from Unitrans to The Pantry to The Aggie, ASUCD funds major campus operations.
While this isn’t often discussed, this money is provided by you — the students — through quarterly fees. ASUCD has a historically low voter turnout, with the most recent election receiving roughly 7-9% of the student vote. Over the last few years, ASUCD received as little as 800 to a few thousand votes out of a student population of 40,000.
The future of The California Aggie’s print budget will come down to negotiations between us, the Senate and Campus Media Board in the next couple of weeks. In a recent meeting between paper leadership and the Media Board, The Aggie’s proposed budget was unanimously approved — a requirement in order to proceed to budget hearings.
Through conversations with the ASUCD President and Senate, it has become clear that there is resistance in supporting The Aggie’s print efforts moving forward. In the ASUCD President’s proposed budget for The Aggie, there is no budget line dedicated to printing costs, instead printing is included under “Supplies and Materials” along with other essential services. This proposal would effectively change our print model, pending other changes proposed by the Senate.
The Aggie’s proposed 2025-2026 budget is lower than the year prior, excluding ASUCD’s minimum wage increase that was originally passed through emergency legislation. However, we expected challenges to our budget, which is why the proposal includes a trim to our printing costs and projected advertising income. However, the obstacles we are facing moving forward seem less concerned with our print and more concerned about what we are printing.
Throughout the last year in public Senate meetings, it has become clear that there is disapproval of our content: From editorials to news reporting, some senators’ opposition to our paper has been made abundantly clear. We are concerned that these critiques are not with our advertising but with our reporting on Senate meetings. In order to continue our reporting and maximize our readership, The Aggie requests that “Printing Costs” be added back to the 2025-2026 budget.
Print journalism:
We cannot stress enough the importance of providing a physical print product for the Davis community. Not only is The Aggie’s presence in print necessary to ensure accessibility to the university’s 40,000 students — some of whom may not have access to our digital platform — it is also fundamental to our ability to promote our paper to students interested in journalism and local businesses interested in advertising opportunities.
Additionally, print journalism directly supports local businesses and holds individuals and organizations accountable — without print, The Aggie’s visibility, accessibility and impact would be drastically reduced. The California Aggie is the only true bridge between what occurs in student government meetings and the public, and we are the only watchdogs available to hold elected officials accountable for $20 million in student fees.
Senate meetings are held weekly in the Mee Room of the Memorial Union (MU) on Thursdays. While the room is decently sized, it can only fit roughly 20 to 30 chairs for student attendees. Additionally, the Senate does not have microphones or adequate sound projection, making it inaccessible for many who attend. The Aggie requested microphones last November to ensure accuracy of quoting the Senate table and commenters, but the request has not been addressed. Moreover, the meetings are made available with Zoom but often last several hours into the night, making our coverage even more essential to the average student.
If we are to see severe cuts to our print operations, our reporting on the Senate — as well as our six other desks — would be less accessible to the student body. Let us be clear: A decision to remove The Aggie from lecture halls, campus buildings and downtown businesses would be a direct act of censorship on our organization.
Additionally, substantially cutting our print budget would force The Aggie to restructure a significant portion of our staff’s roles. For positions such as the layout director, layout artists and outreach and distribution manager, the primary component of their role is to work with our weekly print product. For a governing body that stresses the importance of supporting ASUCD jobs and boasts about the number of students it hires, this decision would be strange at best and directly harmful at worst.
Through conversations during The Aggie’s Quarterly Report a few weeks ago and the Media Board meeting, it’s clear that the grounds for cutting our print budget are baseless. Criticisms that lack quantitative evidence are being weaponized against The Aggie’s proposed printing budget line; These claims are based on speculation and not fact, and there is no willingness on behalf of the governing body, as of now, to present evidence or data to support their claims.
When paper leadership requested evidence to support the reasoning behind a proposed change to The Aggie’s print budget, the response was that quantitative evidence was unnecessary, instead personal anecdotes were presented as the only requirement to make significant cuts to our organization. A decision to present unsubstantiated claims instead of backed-up reasoning lacks respect and ignores the oath taken to support the student body’s access to vital services.
Support The Aggie:
Our priority is not to bring in money to the ASUCD as a commercial unit, it is to provide fair and quality journalism to the campus and local community. Journalism is not intended to be a money-making resource for the student government but instead a service that informs the public and benefits the local community as a whole.
Decisions made that fundamentally restructure and defund an organization should not be based on interpersonal relations between ASUCD units and the student government but should be focused on the individuals directly impacted: the students. This paper is by students and for students, and to cut The Aggie’s funding would not only be harmful, it would be unjust.
Taking even a simple glance at our community demonstrates our impact on the lives of Davis residents and students — from clippings of campus organizations in the MU to our yearly Best of Davis issue hung on downtown windows, our impact is everywhere. We do not have full certainty of the results of Saturday’s budget hearing, but we believe that there is validity and grounds for concern.
But, senators, please prove us wrong. Show us, and the readers, that you will put editorial concerns aside and support the only independent student paper in the city. Support our right to freedom of the press and uplift community voices by keeping us in print. As we see increasing press restrictions in our country — both on the national and student level — choose to be an outlier and support accountability and transparency.
The Aggie has been the longest-standing student paper in Davis since 1915, and the Editorial Board requests that our readers, UC Davis students and community members come together in support of The Aggie’s continuation as a vital service and resource. Students, contact your elected ASUCD Senators to support our print efforts and submit a response directly to The California Aggie in our Google Form. The Aggie has been a free-of-cost service for the student body for over a century, and its continued role in the community needs your support and protection.
Written by: The Editorial Board
