Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

Every day of the week for six weeks, Saint Louis University students will get free copies of the New York Times, USA TODAY and The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Starting next Monday, Jan. 22, 2007, we will be able to pick up these distinguished packets of print news at eight locations on University territory.

Thanks to the administrative legwork of the Student Government Association and the School of Law’s Student Bar Association, SLU is piloting the USA TODAY Collegiate Readership Program. This program distributes newspapers, according to the USA TODAY Web site, that promote lofty qualities like “civic literacy” and “global awareness” in our classrooms, through constant exposure to the news.

In short, we will have free, portable, daily access to current events from local, regional and national perspectives.
Consider it a belated Christmas present.

An annual subscription to The St. Louis Post-Dispatch costs about $125. USA TODAY costs $195 per year. If you want to decorate your coffee table with the New York Times in 2007, be prepared to fork over $650 for home delivery. But what will the SLU community pay for these three reputable periodicals until the end of February?

Nothing.

The papers won’t be free forever, though: During the pilot, the number of papers we use will be monitored. If we take a liking to the service during the trial, we can vote to pay $3-5 of student activity fund money for them next semester.

The combined, market-value cost of the three papers is $970 annually. By paying $3-5 per semester-a pittance, really-for a University-wide subscription, we would receive a 120-fold discount. Other Missouri schools, including Washington University, Truman, Maryville, Webster and the Universities of Missouri in Columbia, St. Louis and Rolla already enjoy this service.

What we should be asking at the end of February is: Can we afford not to keep the papers?

If you’ve ever taken an economics class or listened to your grandparents, you know that there is no such thing as a free lunch. In fact, USA TODAY’s program is a far cry from selfless benefaction. The number of Americans who regularly read print newspapers peaked in 1984 at 63.3 million, and has dropped consistently ever since, especially in the 18- to 34-year-old age demographic. In a recent study conducted by the Online Publisher’s Association, only 3 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds get their daily news from a paper, as opposed to the 46 percent who find news online.

That’s an unfortunate blow for the Times and Post, whose management is finally beginning to realize the threat that free information poses to a subscription industry. To counter the online trend, these papers are borrowing the marketing tactics of toy companies, fast-food chains and cigarette behemoths, trying to get us hooked on brand-name print news now, in the formative years of our information consumption, so we’ll keep coming back later in life.

The Web is too quick and convenient to be eclipsed by newspapers-ever again. It has become a one-stop shop for customizable consumption of current events and various perspectives. We know this, we like it and we are unlikely to change our minds. We have grown up with the Internet’s influx of free information, and we tend to ask newspapers: “Why should we pay for your news when we can get it for free?”
However, we are getting these papers-to have and to hold-for free. There’s nothing left to do but give tangible news another chance.

In the end, this newspaper distribution program is a win-win situation: Newspapers could increase their circulation, and we could benefit from their journalistic efforts. So pick up a copy of the New York Times, USA TODAY, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch and The University News … and read all about it.