Editor’s Note: Information in this article, originally published Nov. 6, has been corrected. Technician modified the language describing the Student Fee Review Committee’s organizational structure to accurately categorize it as a university committee. Technician regrets this error.
The unsigned editorial is the opinion of Technician’s editorial board and is the responsibility of the editor-in-chief.
Student journalism is not a luxury item.
Yet, that was the message made clear when NC State’s Student Fee Review Committee chose not to recommend even a fraction of Student Media’s $4.30 fee increase request at their meeting on Oct. 13.
The Student Fee Review Committee, a university committee co-chaired by Vice Chancellor and Dean for the Division Academic and Student Affairs Doneka R. Scott and Student Senate President Naila Din, advises campus leadership, including the Board of Trustees and the chancellor, on proposed fee increases from various campus services. Additionally, the committee takes feedback and consideration from the student body through the Student Senate. However, Student Senate also declined a recommendation of our fee increase when they failed to pass SR 72, the Student Media Fee Act, at their Oct. 8 meeting.
Proposed by the director and associate director of student media Patrick Neal and Jamie Lynn Gilbert respectively, our increase, if granted, would have brought Student Media’s total fee for students to $30.55 for the 2026-2027 academic year; its purpose was to sustain Student Media’s currently operating capacity by safeguarding the current array of products produced and services offered, including print productions and editorial staff positions, and by maintaining its recommended operating reserve for the next five years.
Without it, Technician’s print publication schedule is set to fall from 26 issues per academic year to just six. That’s three physical newspapers a semester. As a result, our publication is expected to bolster our online and social media presence and to prioritize news through a digital-first mindset.
Sure, some may shrug and say print is dead. Those same people may claim social media has replaced the newspaper stanchion anyways. They may even argue that everything worth knowing finds its way onto your feed eventually.
But we must acknowledge that print isn’t dying because it is no longer a valuable news source. It’s dying because those with the power and in the position to protect it aren’t doing so.
Unfortunately, university newspapers nationwide have been forced to scale back their production after years of budget reductions. Once printed five days a week, Technician will soon reach the hands of future generations merely a handful of times in their college careers.
The fact that the fee increase is going to mean less print publications for our newspaper isn’t the problem in and of itself; moreso, our concern is about what this projects for the future of college journalism at large. A walk, so future attacks on organizations can run.
The assumption that digital news alone can sustain a campus’s happenings overlooks what makes journalism indispensable. In an algorithm-driven landscape, social media rewards what is fast and viral, not what is accurate or essential in all cases. Moreover, the rise of AI and media misinformation is evident in our culture.
However, in 2025, local news organizations like Technician are regarded as nearly twice as trustworthy as information received via social media.
Of course, social media is great for communicating events quickly, an integral part of reporting breaking news and live coverage. It is not something we view as expendable. But when we print our paper, our editorial staff and copy editors spend hours proofreading and fact checking each article, each page before any physical paper is distributed. The ability to make post-publication edits through online platforms risks the journalistic integrity of this process — of getting it right the first time.
As students reporting on a college campus, we have the ability to put our boots on the ground like no other national or regional news source and capture the stories that comprise our NC State community.
We’ve had the privilege of uplifting those stories through tangible publications that stand the test of time; the depth, context and permanence of print are irreplaceable.
The “Why Not Both” special edition of Spring 2024 proves the importance of print. Technician noted the historic accomplishment of both the men’s and women’s basketball teams reaching the Final Four during the NCAA tournament that year.
Students stood in lines and emptied newsstands. Alumni asked for mailed copies. People framed the papers. Print editions were resold like memorabilia online. The campus held those pages in their hands like pieces of history.
No Instagram story has ever accomplished that impact, and never will.
Moreover, our paper has tackled serious and controversial issues, some of which major social media platforms and search engines are coded not to spotlight. Students deserve an accessible outlet to free speech, one not threatened by social media algorithm censorship.
In November 2024, Technician reported on and printed an article about the death of NC State faculty member Marshall Brain. In Spring 2025, we reported on two NC State students who left the U.S. after their visas were revoked. Then, go further back to 2006 when Technician reported on violence at a football tailgate where two people, one being an NC State student, were murdered.
Of course, these stories can and do exist online. But they were also printed, and print carries permanence; it turns university experiences, events and happenings into artifacts and preserves student voices long after notifications disappear.
If we don’t start prioritizing print media now, at our academic institutions and beyond, it’s only a matter of time before it isn’t a source at all. Then, it really will be dead.
