Newsday, Long Island's only daily newspaper, may no longer be freely available on campus, a perfect example of everything ailing the newspaper industry.
News of this change shocked many since it was not unusual to see the Newsday stack empty much quicker than that of the New York Times, given that Newsday delivers more papers than the Times does. Be it because its writing style is more accessible, the news coverage more local or its crossword easier to complete, Newsday was clearly the more popular of the two.
However, for those who are working journalists, or those who aspire to work in newspapers, Newsday's impending disappearance from campus comes as a jolt for several reasons: the paper can no longer afford to deliver subsidized copies, the . Disappointing as it is to not have wonderful Sudoku to pass the time in lectures with, more alarming is the sad state of the print journalism industry.
In a time of television, youtube and online media, the age of print appears to be dying a slow and tragic death. Newsday's inability to fund their scholastic program is only further proof of this demise.
There is still hope that the University will be able to figure out a negotiation with Newsday and keep the paper on campus a while longer. But for how much longer? It seems inevitable that the time will come when Newsday, like other papers, will not have the funding to print, much less sell to campuses at a discounted price.
Perhaps like everything else in our life, we should mourn the loss of Newsday preemptively and just go online already. We hear web Sudoku is pretty good there.