Syracuse University community members who check The Daily Orange newsracks on Tuesday won’t see a print newspaper this year.

The independent news organization, which covers the greater Syracuse area, is cutting a day of print production to better focus on digital storytelling, its management team announced in early August.

The D.O. will continue 24/7 online news coverage and print newspapers on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, said Sam Ogozalek, The D.O.’s 2018-19 editor-in-chief. Mike Dooling, the paper’s general manager, said eliminating the Tuesday print edition will save roughly $30,000 each year in printing-related costs. The cut follows an industry trend, Dooling said.

“The transition from print to digital isn’t going to happen fast, but it’s going to happen soon, and we gotta be ready for it,” Dooling said.

Ogozalek said the cut does not signal financial hardship at the paper, despite nationwide disruptions in print advertising and readership that have rocked the news media landscape. Instead, the paper’s staff on Monday nights will focus on digital content, such as podcasts, photostories and interactive web applications, Ogozalek said.

“I think everyone sees where the news media industry is and where it’s going,” Ogozalek said.

The D.O.’s Board of Directors on Aug. 1 voted 10-0 to change the paper’s print schedule. But the initial push for a digital focus at The D.O. goes back years, Ogozalek added.

Justin Mattingly, who led The D.O. as editor-in-chief during the 2016-17 academic year, created a strategic plan to, in part, embrace the shift to online platforms, Ogozalek said.

A major takeaway from Mattingly’s plan: embrace whatever changes may come with an increasingly digitally-focused news media landscape.

“There’s been a lot of support for this idea to cut a day,” Ogozalek said. “If you look at … the local market we’re in, I can’t stress enough how good of a time this is, to do something like this.”

The Tuesday paper was cut because that edition typically had the smallest amount of print advertisements, Dooling said. It’s unlikely that the print cut will affect ad sales because ads typically published on Tuesdays will be pushed to different days, he said.

Improving content presentation on both mobile platforms and on The D.O.’s website will be a priority, this year, as will general site functionality, Ogozalek said. More than 50 percent of The D.O.’s readership comes from mobile devices, he added.

“The opportunity that this has presented, it doesn’t come around often,” Ogozalek said. “I think this is the newsroom to do it.”

Published on August 26, 2018 at 8:32 pm

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