Ruben Inostroza will lose his job after working 11 years on the press. He hopes to get a job at the Killeen Daily Herald. “Everything’s up in the air,” he said.

Photos by Stephen Keller

On Wednesday, May 12, press supervisor Arnold Wiggins and his four-person crew will go to their last day of work.

In January, the Texas Student Media Board voted to sell the printing press used to print the University of Texas student newspaper, The Daily Texan, as well as the Texas Travesty and a constellation of local high school and college papers. Starting June 4, the Austin American-Statesman will print the Texan, making the jobs of four full-time press workers obsolete.

“I really enjoy being in the atmosphere with the University,” Wiggins said.”The sports programs, the activities on campus, it made me feel a part of it. I was really clueing in to having a family-type relationship with what was going on here.”

The move came at a time when declining advertising revenues and print readership, as well as a transition to online journalism, were leading to profound shifts in the news industry.

Advertising revenues fell as well for the print edition of The Daily Texan, and the Texas Student Media Board tried to cover a $235,000 budget deficit without dipping into the agency’s $1 million rainy day fund. The decision to move the printing of the Texan to the American-Statesman presses followed the Cox Enterprises Inc. announcement that it had put the metro daily American-Statesman up for sale.

“It was coming to a position that it was not as cost-effective for us to maintain a full-time press crew,” TSM director Kathy Lawrence said. “At the same time what was happening to us, as much as we hate to think about it, is that Daily Texan circulation was declining.”

An industry in turmoil

A host of small papers as well as some of the largest in the nation have been forced to cut staff sizes in the wake of the industry-wide contraction, and some are facing imminent bankruptcy.

A few have been forced to end print circulation almost entirely, going online only. Last February, Denver’s Rocky Mountain News closed its doors after 150 years.

Last month, the New York Times Company announced that unless unions at the Boston Globe agree to wage and benefit cutbacks, the paper will be shut down. The company, which purchased the Globe in 1993 for $1.1 billion, wants $20 million in union concessions. Current projections predict the paper will lose $85 million this year.

The upheaval hits home

The Daily Texan has printed daily at UT since 1913 and is among the largest and most respected college newspapers in the nation. Like most college papers today, the Texan maintains a Web site, but online readership is far lower than print.

A non-scientific poll conducted for this story showed that, even as most students get their news from online sources, those who read the Texan prefer the print edition to the Web site.

Texan editor-in-chief-elect Jillian Sheridan has said improving the Web site will be one of her priorities as editor. Texas Student Media staff members are building a new Web site for the paper, but projections for the launch date continue to be pushed back.

Wiggins and his crew still hope to find jobs within a declining industry.

After about a decade of working together, press crew members Angie Lombrano and Ruben Inostroza both interviewed for a possible position at the Killeen Daily Herald.

“It’s all up in the air,” Inostroza said.

Lombrano worked on the press for 18 years, while Inostroza spent about 11 years at the media agency.

“It was very disheartening to them. They’ve worked here a long time,” Lawrence said. “These were all people who thought, when they came to the University of Texas, that they would have good jobs with great benefits, probably until they retired. I think they’re coping with it really well.

When he was recruited to run the Texan printing press, Wiggins said he was virtually guaranteed a lifetime job.

“I understand that there’s the economy that plays a factor in this, but some of it is just a lack in interest of the people who are involved,” he said. “They’re selling out. It’s not the students that are doing it, it’s the board.”

Video by Joel Wright

Arnold Wiggins inspects a copy of the Texas Travesty for printing flaws. He came to Texas Student Media in 2004 to run The Daily Texan printing press. He said he was virtually guaranteed a lifetime job. Click on the image for an audio slideshow about the press.

Audio slideshow by Stephen Keller

In a small, unscientific survey, we asked about 50 Daily Texan readers how they read the Texan, where they get the rest of their news and how they rate the Texan and its Web site.

We found that while most of the student readers of the Texan get their news from online sources, they read the print edition of the Texan. They also rated the Texan fairly highly in terms of quality, but rated the Texan Web site much lower.

Even though the Texan’s editors are placing an increasing emphasis on online production of the paper, our findings suggest that most of the Texan’s readership continues to read the print edition. This may be because the print edition is free and more readily available than many other print newspapers are. Even as online journalism detracts an increasing number of readers from print newspapers, the Texan seems at least partially insulated from this trend.

This chart shows the primary news sources of our respondents. An overwhelming majority of the students we surveyed reported that they rely primarily on internet-based news sources.

This chart shows where our respondents reported that they read the Texan. Even though this same group indicated that they overwhelmingly rely on the internet as a news source, a remarkable majority of them read the Texan’s print edition rather than visiting the Texan Web site.

This chart shows how respondents rated the print edition of the Texan versus the Texan Web site, on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the most favorable. Students fairly consistently rated the print edition of the Texan more highly than the Web site.

Graphics By Robert Green