UI Reducing Budgets For Student Media

The University of Idaho is reducing the budget on its newspaper, radio station and yearbook, but it is still $51,000 in the red.

Idaho Argonaut editor Michelle Kalbeitzer and other managers are cutting to the bone expenditures, salaries and positions.

Kalbeitzer may have the hardest job. She must lay off six of her staff and still turn out a paper twice a week. But it could be worse. She initially was faced with firing 15.

“I think we have a strong enough team. We’ll cover all our bases. We’ll fill the paper with content,” she said.

The Argonaut boasts of being the longest continually published college newspaper in the Northwest.

Shoshana Kun, manager of KUOI radio, did not have to fire staff, but she reduced salaries and left the news director and music librarian posts unfilled.

Yearbook editor Jamie Waggoner’s publication won a best of show award in a national collegiate contest. That is what sells advertisements, she said. Waggoner also was able to save $6,000 in publishing costs this year.

“As frustrating as it is to make the numbers work out, I’m glad I’ve been through this,” she said. “I’ve learned so much, nothing I could have learned in a classroom.”