Jim Reische
Board for Student Publications Co-Chair
“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”
———Mr. Micawber (David Copperfield)
Dickens loved newspapers. Little could the journalist-turned-novelist have realized that one of his most telling insights into the news business would come not from his musings on the power of the media, but from the lament of the kindhearted spendthrift Mr. Micawber.
Micawber’s words perfectly describe the fulcrum on which newspapers are balanced today: just a few pennies’ difference tips a newsroom toward hope or despair.
Student Publications, too, finds itself poised on this fulcrum. As many of you know from the letter my co-chair, Chip Peterson, and I sent to you in February, all three of our publications are facing shrinking revenues and challenges to their market share.
Result misery? Not so fast. Since I joined the Board in 2004 we’ve deepened relationships with our incredibly dedicated alumni. We’ve celebrated the philanthropy of Stan Lipsey and so many others who helped renovate 420 Maynard, providing the students with a space where they can test out new ideas in journalism. We’ve taken steps to increase diversity and help you create scholarships that lower the financial barriers to student involvement. I’m proud to have played a small role in these efforts, alongside dedicated students, Board members and alumni like yourselves.
Result happiness? Not yet. The Rocky Mountain Post has gone down, the Tribune is bankrupt, the Times has mortgaged its building. In the face of such challenges, media organizations like SPUB can too easily wind up seesawing back and forth.
The solution: income twenty pounds, expenditure nineteen six. Maximize revenues and control expenses. SPUB has multiple advantages in this effort. A unique audience, for one: affluent, well-educated young people who are attractive to advertisers even in down times. And a great talent pool, for another: student-journalists who wake up every day with new ideas, a tireless work ethic and the will not to be hogtied by tradition. Even as I write this, they’re exploring new products (an entertainment guide, an interactive rental map), thinking about smarter uses of technology (video stories, blog posts, maybe even the latest Michigan football updates streamed to your cell phone?) and tapping revenue sources that didn’t exist six months ago (stay tuned for big news about the Daily archive project this spring!).
I’m proud of what my Board colleagues and the students have accomplished during my four years as co-chair, and guardedly optimistic that we’re on track toward a new era of growth. It’s time for me to make room for a new co-chair with fresh ideas, but I’m far from done. I plan to spend the rest of my time on the Board making sure we live up to Mr. Micawber’s hard-won insights about fiscal responsibility—more fully, I assure you, than did Micawber himself. If we get it right, 119 years from now the students will still be discovering new ways to publish great journalism.
Result? Happiness.