 "Photo: Ashley Hitson")
When students pay fees at the beginning of each semester, a portion goes into the orange boxes around the city and winds up strewn on the ground at campus bus stops or dumped in recycle bins. About $270,000 of the Student Services Fee is allocated to The Daily Texan.
The newspaper will not ask the Student Services Fee Committee for an increase for next year's allocation. The Texan has received the same amount for several years, said Jean Hogue, assistant director of Texas Student Publications.
The Texan receives the seventh-largest student services fee allocation. The amount, however, is just enough to cover the cost of newsprint, Hogue said. It is about 10.8 percent of the Texan's $2.5 million annual budget.
The majority of the Texan budget, about $2.2 million, comes from advertising.
"We live or die by advertising," Hogue said.
The total Texan budget pays 23 non-student staff members and about 150 student employees. The budget includes printing, distribution and other costs for producing the paper. It also pays nine hours of tuition each for editor Kevin Kushner and managing editor Ryan Petkoff.
"Because of the the size of the newspaper, we have lots of opportunities for students to be involved," said Kathy Lawrence, director of Texas Student Publications.
The Texan holds two-week tryouts at the beginning of each semester for anyone interested, not limited to journalism students.
"It's a common misconception that people can't work here if they're not journalism majors," Kushner said.
The most common criticism of the Texan is that its coverage of the news is politically biased, whether too conservative or too liberal, Kushner said.
Ben Durham, a Student Government liberal arts representative, had other criticism to offer.
Durham, who has opposed the Texan opinion page's stance against an SG diversity resolution, said the Texan could be a powerful advocate for student issues but fails to live up to its responsibility.
Lawrence said the Texan, which has published for 103 years, is the largest student newspaper in the country. Its circulation averages about 28,000 to 30,000 a day in fall and spring. The Texan prints more pages annually than any other university newspaper.
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