Editor’s note: This story has been updated since original publication to clarify information about The Daily Reveille’s advertisers.
The Daily Reveille may go from being printed on a weekly basis to hitting newsstands as many as four days a week.
LSU Student Media Director John Friscia has been discussing a revamp of the newspaper—which ceased being printed five days a week in the spring of 2017—with Martin Johnson, the newly-minted dean of the Manship School of Mass Communication, and Editor-In-Chief Natalie Anderson.
Over the past few years, the 131-year-old, student-run newspaper has been adapting to the digital world. Its staff is currently finalizing a contract with Town News to launch the first Daily Reveille app this fall.
However, Friscia says the print product provides better real-world experience to the paper’s roughly 70 employees and better serves its college base of readers.
“If it serves the community here on campus, I think it needs to be more than once a week,” Friscia says. “The question is how we get back to that.”
It’s a fair question, given the potential roadblocks that lie ahead.
First, there’s politics. The brainstorming, while still in its preliminary stage, comes just a few months after LSU Student Government passed legislation that would impose deep cuts to student media fees.
If students vote “yes” on the October ballot item, it would eliminate fees for the Gumbo yearbook, as well as consolidate the remaining fees for The Daily Reveille, TigerTV and KLSU-FM into one fee. Legacy magazine would be discontinued.
“We’re in a wait-to-see-what-happens status,” Friscia says.
Then there’s money. It costs anywhere from $1,700 to $2,000 to print 7,000 copies of the paper—now in all color—every Wednesday, Friscia says. Plus they’re looking to broaden the paper’s reach, recently adding five distribution points to its route and eyeing more off-campus locations.
And, as the Reveille prepares to put its printing contract up for bid next spring, President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs on imported newsprint could drive printing costs up by as much as 20%, with many local newspapers already fearing the impact.
Still, Friscia says he and the Reveille’s interim sales manager are talking with advertisers who say that if the Reveille was able to increase print frequency there would be more opportunity for them to advertise.
“Less than three [days a week] wouldn’t make a dent in what we’re trying to achieve,” he says. “But it also has to be sustainable.”
