Publishing in print is fundamental to any student newspaper’s journalistic endeavors
By THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE EDITORIAL BOARD
The California Aggie has been serving the UC Davis campus and local community for 110 years. However, due to budget concerns, The Aggie’s future in print is currently in jeopardy.
Print journalism is essential to a functional and thriving democracy, especially on the student level. While at glance this may feel less relevant in today’s digital world, the impact of print journalism has always been and remains timeless. Cutting The Aggie’s budget would strip us of being a weekly newspaper and significantly downsize our journalistic efforts.
Originally founded in 1915, the newspaper is one of the oldest student publications in the state. While maintaining complete editorial independence, The Aggie is a unit within the Associated Students of UC Davis (ASUCD) — receiving funding to manage our salaries and print operations.
The UC Davis Campus Media Board unanimously approved The Aggie’s proposed 2025-2026 budget on Feb. 28, but the ASUCD President informed paper leadership that the ASUCD is not planning on supporting The Aggie’s full print efforts moving forward.
Throughout the last century, The Aggie has been providing the student and city community essential news including but not limited to: campus and city news, features, opinion, arts and culture, sports, science and technology and multimedia. Remaining in print is essential to The California Aggie’s service to the community.
Print journalism has a long and powerful history of keeping those in power accountable. As student press, our obligation is the same — to hold those in any office, from local and student government to campus administration, accountable. This is our journalistic duty and legal right, as defined by the First Amendment.
Differing from most colleges, Davis is a small town with a population of nearly 60,000 residents. We don’t have newspapers like The New York Times or The Los Angeles Times to compete with; While serving as a student newspaper, The California Aggie also functions as a local paper — providing substantial coverage to city and county communities at large.
Our print presence is essential to the local community and only further strengthens our credibility and relationship with our readers. By providing the student and local community a free physical product, we not only inform students of the only journalism opportunity at UC Davis, we assure them we are there to bring them accessible, reliable and quality journalism.
The Aggie is also continuously working to improve our digital and online presence. It’s worth pointing out that having a printed paper is the best form of advertisement and means to increase our digital presence. In order to have a large online readership, we need a print product to coincide with it.
There are several legitimate reasons for why The California Aggie should remain weekly in print, but none are as important as the simple fact that journalism is a public and physical service for the community.
First and foremost, The California Aggie does not want to stay in print in order to boost resumes, brag about our stories or to make advertising revenue — The California Aggie wants to stay in print in order to continue serving you, the reader. Regardless if you are a student, professor, community member, business owner, activist or all of the above — The Aggie is a service for you. This has been our priority for the last 110 years, and this will be our priority for years to come.
Written by: The California Aggie Editorial Board
Signed in solidarity by the editorial boards of:
UC Davis’ The California Aggie, UC Irvine’s New University, UC San Diego’s The Guardian and UCLA’s Daily Bruin
