Man, this could get ugly. What kind of business cuts its budget nearly in half from one year to the next? Easy. One that’s staring Chapter 11 square in the face. Bankruptcy, boys and girls. That’s pretty much where this newspaper was heading not too long ago.
Circulation is down. You’ll probably never see another color page in here again. (Unless, of course, you’re an advertiser and you purchase a color ad, in which case, I love you.) Workers getting their pay cut by ridiculous percentages. Some getting their pay whacked out of the budget entirely. Even the water cooler had to go.
That, my friends, is why The California Aggie is better off now than it has been in a long, long time.
What? That’s about as logical as believing Brett Favre will really mean it the next time he retires. Or saying Kanye has class. In fact, that might be as illogical as thinking the only thing Bill Clinton got out of his trek to North Korea to save those two female journalists was a warm, fuzzy feeling … in his heart.
Good. I don’t believe in logic anyway. It’s overrated.
In all seriousness, though, we’ve come a long way in the past few months. Here’s how:
We’ve developed a sustainable financial model (you know, one where we might be able to break even instead of losing over $200,000 per year).Along those lines, we’re making more money, too. Not enough, but more. We’ve brought in nearly one-third of the revenue we made all of last year in the past month-and-a-half thanks to a new, double-secret advertising approach.We’re moving into the 21st century (i.e. we’re launching a new website that doesn’t stink by the end of next week, we’ve partnered with KDVS to bring you a weekly radio show and we’re on Facebook, Twitter and [insert whatever social networking site that comes out next week here]).We’ve furthered our training programs, offering our employees workshops and seminars with guidance from some of the top journalism pros in the region.
This economy stinks. Not exactly a newsflash, huh? We’re not throwing in the towel, though. Far from it. While this year should present more financial troubles than The Aggie has ever faced, we have every reason to believe we’ll produce as good a product as we ever had.
That’s our goal: To bring the best.
We want you to help us reach that goal. As always, The Aggie is hiring. Unlike always, all of our job applications have been posted on the ASUCD job site (asucd.ucdavis.edu/jobs) for two reasons: 1) It’s more efficient and easier to access the applications online, and 2) it’s not like we can afford the paper costs of printing applications anyway.
Writers, copyreaders, photographers, designers, ad reps, sales clerks – you name it, we need it. A common misconception is you need some kind of experience to get a gig at The Aggie. Couldn’t be further from the truth. Is experience nice? Absolutely. Is it required? Absolutely not.
The fact of the matter is UC Davis doesn’t have a journalism program. You can take media classes through the Communication Department and hone your writing skills though the aptly-named University Writing Program, but a pure, academic journalism program is nowhere to be found.
No matter. That’s what we’re here for. Well, that and bringing UC Davis and the community together with a daily collection of news on campus and city issues and a whole lot more. We’re entirely student-run and receive no financial support from ASUCD or UC Davis, so we’re able to fully maintain our independence without interference from faculty or administrators.
Think of The Aggie as a laboratory. Your laboratory. This is where students pick up some valuable, hands-on experience in journalism, reporting, opinion writing, design, production, management, sales – we’re talking about a pretty long list here.
So join our team. You’ll be glad you did.
ADAM LOBERSTEIN used to be the sports editor, so he’s kind of amazed he just wrote a whole story with no mention of UC Davis athletics. Our football team is beating Western Oregon on Saturday. Write it down. He can be reached at editor@theaggie.org.
