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From SeeingBlack.com Family/Youth
The paper owes its printer, The Washington Times, about $48,000, according to university officials. After a board meeting The Hilltop Advisory Committee, which consists of students, faculty and staff, decided to halt publication until the debt is reduced. The university has already helped to pay off tens of thousands of dollars. The newspaper’s business manager, Ashley Marshall , a junior legal communications major, said that fall advertising revenue for the paper has been falling steadily since the paper went daily in 2005. That year, more than $149,000 worth of ads were sold. In fall 2006, the amount was a little more than $122,000. Only $86,000 worth of ads were sold in fall 2007, she said. The Hilltop experienced a 42 percent drop in ad revenue in two years according to Black College Wire. The Hilltop staff have been doing all that they can to secure funding including work without pay, said Howard University Student Association President Marcus Ware. Ware wants to see more funding come from the association and alumni. “Give back alumni, give back so that the insufficient funds won’t mess up anything else that goes on in our school,” said Genae Gregg, a sophomore communications and culture major. “This is your school—you need to give back.” Media outlets everywhere, including The Hilltop, are trying to find new ways to generate new revenue, said Yanick Rice Lamb, associate professor of journalism. “Everybody is looking at the best way to do everything. It’s a challenge.” Lamb pointed out that newspapers throughout the country are being affected by the current state of the economy, foreclosures and classified advertisements being lost to eBay, Craig’s List and other Web sites. Though other Black colleges have daily online publications, The Hilltop is the only daily that is printed. “Businesses are cycles,” Lamb added. “They go through different cycles and this is not unusual for any type of business whether it is a student-run organization or a professional one. ” They’ve (The Hilltop) gotten through things in the past and they’ll get through this one.” The Hilltop was founded in 1924 by Zora Neale Hurston, author and anthropologist of the Harlem Renaissance, an African-American cultural movement of the 1920’s and 1930’s. Since it’s launch, the paper has covered major events at Howard University, in the capital, the nation and the world. The Hilltop helped to build and shape the careers of many who work at various media outlets, including New York Times reporter Isabel Wilkerson, Howard’s first Pulitzer Prize winner for journalism. “It has a really strong legacy,” Lamb said of the newspaper. “I think because it was the first paper at an HBCU to go daily it has influenced some of the other daily papers and journalism departments around the country at other HBCU’s. Some of them have increased their frequency. They run harder to chase the Hilltop. They’ve stepped up their reporting online and in print.” Many Howard University students miss the daily publication and said that without a print publication, the paper will loose readership “I miss it,” said Shem Franklin, a sophomore mechanical engineering major. “Its kind of like one of those Howard things like when you’re bored and you’re waiting for the shuttle you expect the Hilltop to be there to see what crazy articles they have in there.” The university’s newspaper stands are bare. Students truck to class without clutching their daily dose of life and style, news, views, confessions and perspectives. “It’s a damn shame,” said Kenneth Connell, a junior biology major, who does not believe that students will follow-up with the online edition. “I for one just don’t go online to read the Hilltop.” Even Hilltop staff members like Janelle Jolley, a senior broadcast major, does not see students reading the online version. “I don’t think students are keeping up with it in the same manner as the print addition because it’s school news.” Gregg said her mother reads The Hilltop online. “She’s the only person I know that looks at it online.” She described reading the paper as part of her morning ritual. “It helps me in the morning. It’s keeps me awake for that eight o’clock class. You need something to read.” Ware sees The Hilltop’s absence from print as having a negative affect not only on readership but on advertising sales as well. “A lot of companies secured ads that are not going to run now. That is a liability for The Hilltop.” The Hilltop editor-in-chief Drew Costly did not return phone calls seeking comments. Tatenda Gumbo, a sophomore broadcast journalism major said the now online-only publication makes it difficult for students in the John H. Johnson School of Communications to fulfill their journalistic obligations. “For journalism students it makes it harder for us because that was an avenue for us to go and write stories and we were able to complete our requirements,” said Gumbo, referring to stories that a student is expected to get published within a semester while in a reporting and writing class. University officials said there will definitely be a graduation issue at the end of the semester and that the paper is expected to resume printing in fall of 2008. © Copyright by SeeingBlack.com |
