The burden, then, is squarely on the News. We want a paper, but we insist that it be a good one. We should think about the compulsory subscription issue only in terms of whether the News will be better or worse in the long run.
News Must Prove Itself
In opposing the idea of taxing every girl in College each year, we believe that the kind of News Radcliffe wants to read will be achieved only through the sheer necessity of having to go out and attract subscribers. It should be the job of the News to make every girl here want to read the paper. We believe that a continuation of the present compulsory subscription requirement would produce, in the long run, exactly the opposite effect. We believe that the improvement of the News in the last few weeks has been directly caused by the staff's sudden realization that the student body must be convinced of the News' worthiness. And we believe that if another year of subsidization is voted, the News will slip back into its former uninspired ways.
These who believe that subsidy is the only way the News can survive generally cite two arguments in support of their cause. They say that rising costs have squashed them financially, and they say that the "security" of an assured subscription list would insure a Golden Ago of never-ending enlargement and improvements.
Finances in the Golden Age
What about financial pressure? The same cost spiral that hit the News has hit every other college paper in the country, and there seems to be no reason why the News should be peculiarly hard hit. It is claimed that the News still loses money on each issue over its advertising revenue. If this is true, then there is something drastically wrong with the financial handling of the paper, and the editors should take immediate steps to revamp their business set-up.
How about the Golden Age of improvements? On the face of it, it would seem that extensive improvements, on the order of six-page issues and so forth, would have to depend on a complete financial reorganization. If the News loses money running four pages, how much more would it lose if there were six pages every week? At the same time, livelier contents do not depend on finances. It doesn't cost a thing to run an interesting story instead of a dull one.
Freedom of the Press
We have not considered the greatest potential danger of compulsory subscriptions: a third party being introduced into the picture. If the Student Government collects subscription money for the News and then passes it along, it is not hard to foresee a time when the Student Government, finding itself in opposition to a policy of the News, would feel obliged to use its financial power to "convince" the editorial staff. Freedom of the press flies out the window. There are already many instances of such conflicts between interests controlling the finances and interests controlling the editorial content of college newspapers. And the News in its last two compulsory years has no great record of independent thought; our paper has been noticeably unwilling to take firm stands in opposition to any Administration or Student Government measures.
The News will prosper only when the business staff is faced with the necessity of bringing in more revenue on its own initiative. It will improve only when the editorial staff realizes that only a live, vigorous paper will attract subscribers. The artificial crutch of compulsory subscriptions accomplishes neither of these objectives. Other newspapers in the Big Seven group of Colleges get along by themselves. Smith and Vassar each have two unsubsidized newspapers. Radcliffe can surely put out one.