The past few months have seen a dramatic increase in newspapers cutting staffs.
During the summer, Cleveland’s The Plain Dealer cut about a third of its staff; about 50 reporters, photographers and designers received layoff notices. On Oct. 1, it was announced that Lloyd’s List, the world’s oldest newspaper, located in London, will cease its print product entirely.
Even college newspapers have been cutting their print schedules. Last month, the University of Illinois’ Daily Illini made the decision to print four days a week instead of five, and the University of Missouri’s Maneater is cutting down to once a week instead of twice.
There has also been a recent trend of newspapers cutting the number of pages per edition. We at The Post are no strangers to this, as we’ve seen our page counts drop over the years.
But a growing number of dailies have even eliminated their opinion pages completely, while others are instead choosing to publish fewer editorials and columns.
Last month, The Philadelphia Inquirer announced it would print one opinion page instead of two, greatly reducing the number of columns and editorial content.
The Seattle Times and Kansas City Star have also made the decision to print a single opinion page.
The Pew Research Center reported Tuesday that the Association of Opinion Journalists has gone from 549 members in 2006 to only 245 this year, a decline of 55 percent.
The opinion page at The Post truly does aim to represent the student voice at Ohio University. We hope a future Post editor would never be forced to make the decision to eliminate the opinion page of our independent newspaper.
Page 2 is where you, our readers, can voice your opinions. It is a platform for you to debate what is important to you. Our opinion page has played host to a number of important discussions, from the dialogue that ensued over “Blurred Lines” and the Marching 110 to issues such as fracking and tuition hikes.
We strive to bring you a variety of columns every day. We work to bring you editorials that help spark discussion and offer solutions to problems brought to light from our coverage.
We encourage readers to continue to submit letters to the editor and keep the discussion — and Page 2 — alive.
Editorials represent the majority opinion of The Post’s executive editors.
