By Matt Branson
College Topics Staff Writer

Zero days a week.

None.

Zip.

Zilch.

Nada.

The day that years of Cavalier Daily staffers have waited for arrived Sept. 18, 1996. The University Journal announced that it was suspending publication because of overwhelming debt, completing a precipitous freefall that began in April 1996.

Journal editor-in-chief Josh Barney, who is apparently an idiot, announced that the Journal staff will now focus its efforts on a fundraising campaign to pay off its $150,000 debt to Media General, its publisher, and to establish an emergency fund. Barney hopes to raise the money through a slate of events that includes benefit concerts and by soliciting donations from newspapers, corporations and alumni.

"Just look at the University's Capital Campaign. Compared to the millions and millions it has raised, $150,00 is just a drop in the bucket", Barney said in a press release Sept. 18, 1996. Okay, forget the apparently - he IS an idiot.

"I think that although the University Journal was competition, it was a loss for the University because there is less opportunity for students interested in journalism," Cavalier Daily editor-in-chief Kate Kofteci said.

"Along those same lines, we have tried to make everyone feel welcome, including former UJ staffers." Kofteci added that a few people from the Journal have joined the Cavalier Daily in the last month, and she expects more to follow suit if the Journal does not meet its goal of resuming publication next spring. The Journal first showed signs of financial weakness in the spring of 1992 when The Cavalier Daily revealed that the Journal was publishing at well below its stated circulation of 14,000 on Fridays.

True to form, Student Council took no action on the matter.

The Journal's financial difficulties came to a head on April 8, 1996, when the Student Council Appropriations Committee made the groundbreaking decision to follow its own rules and not give money from the Student Activity Fund to the Journal because it was in debt at the time.

Alvar Soosar, Council vice president for organizations, told The Cavalier Daily on April 8,1996, that Committee members had not taken this step in the past because they were "afraid of political backlash. ... We are living up to what we were told to do."

Organizations in debt are ineligible for funding, and the Journal's 1995-96 operating budget showed a shortfall of $30,837.40. Journal staffers, obviously doing different math than the rest of the planet, told Student Council the paper was only $10,000 in debt.

The Journal had requested $19,661.09 after receiving $24,624 the previous year, the second-largest amount doled out by Student Council.

To cope with the defunding, the Journal cut its circulation from 10,000 to 8,000. The Journal's debt is primarily a result of declining advertising revenue. Issues have rarely been larger than six pages in the last two years, and advertising in an issue has often totaled less than one page.

Kofteci said that The Cavalier Daily has not seen an increase in advertising revenue recently because most of the Journal's advertising was University groups who previously advertised in both papers.

In late August 1996, The Cavalier Daily reclaimed its spot as the only daily on Grounds when the Journal rolled back its publication schedule to three days a week. With this decision, the University of Wisconsin at Madison became the only American college with two five-day student newspapers. The other shoe finally dropped on the Journal in mid-September when Media General told the paper that it would not print any more issues until the Journal paid its debt.

Never a staff to let the grass grow under its feet, the paper is sponsoring a benefit at Trax Nov.7 featuring the Gibb Droll Band as well as a raffle Nov.16. Various fraternity leaders told the Cavalier Daily that such concerts usually raise anywhere from $2,000 to $3,000. Must be more of that creative math employed by the Journal if they expect to get well anytime soon.

Matt Branson graduated in 1995 and is a former Managing Editor.