Rutgers paper fights fee proposal

The Daily Targum, Rutgers University's student newspaper and one of the country's oldest, is seeking support for its fight against a University Senate proposal that could diminish the paper's funding and lead to news and staff cutbacks.

If Richard L. McCormick, Rutgers' president, approves the proposal, there will be a check box on New Brunswick undergraduates' term bills allowing them to indicate if they do not want to pay the $9.75-a-semester fee for the Targum. Currently, students may request refunds, but they must do so at the Targum office, said university spokesman Sandy Lanman.

One other college organization, the New Jersey Public Interest Research Group (NJPIRG), is also funded by a special fee from a larger pool of Rutgers students. It already has the check-box option. The fee funding for both groups is approved through student referendums.

Lanman said the University Senate, which includes staff and students, and the Student Assembly, were in favor of the proposal, but only McCormick can enact it.

Chris Keating, chairman of the Student Assembly, said it approved the change because "students shouldn't have to jump through hoops to get their money back." The Targum provides a service and should get mandatory funding, he said.

The Targum petition argues that the check box will have dire consequences and seeks to have McCormick allow discussions to come up with an alternative.

"The future of an independent and daily campus newspaper lies solely in the hands of our president," Dan Bracaglia, Targum editor in chief, wrote in the letter accompanying the petition. "Let him know that you will not stand by and let this change imperil the second-oldest college newspaper in the nation."

In an interview, Bracaglia said the concern is that the check box will substantially lower student-fee funding - about one-third of the Targum's $1.25 million budget. The rest, he said, comes from advertising revenue.

If people can just check a box to not pay, the worry is that's what they will do, Bracaglia said.

"Times are tough out there," he said.

The Targum is confronting some of the same woes as metropolitan dailies.

Bracaglia said classified advertising is half of what it was a year ago and other advertisers are cutting back as well, forcing the paper to cut back on its number of pages. Further funding reduction would likely result in more cuts, he said, including reducing staff wages. The last resort would be cutting staff, he said.

The Targum's daily circulation is about 17,000. The number of people who request a refund ranges between 100 and 150 a year, Bracaglia said.

Lanman said it was not known when McCormick would decide.