photo by: Bremen Keasey

A photo of Stauffer-Flint Hall, 1435 Jayhawk Blvd., on the campus of the University of Kansas. The Daily Kansan, located in the building, faces a possible 80% cut in its funding, and over 7,000 people have signed a petition against the cut.

The University Daily Kansan, KU’s student newspaper, got two big news flashes about itself and its place on campus this week.

The first one came from Student Senate on Monday, and the Kansan’s leaders might sum it up like this: You don’t matter.

The newspaper’s 16 paid staff positions are funded by the university’s student fees, which each student pays to subsidize various organizations, amenities and activities and which are set by the Student Senate each year. This school year, each KU student paid $522.05 in fees, and $3.64 of that went to the Kansan.

On Monday, Student Senate’s Fee Review Committee proposed increasing the fees to $531.65 for next school year. But the Kansan wouldn’t see any of the extra money. Instead, the committee proposed a precipitous 80% cut for the paper. Only 75 cents of every student’s fees would go to the Kansan.

Soon after that news, the Kansan staff put up a petition on Change.org called “Save the Kansan: Stop the Student Senate Funding Cuts!” Its language was dire, warning that the proposed change in funding threatens “the very existence of our campus’s only daily student news organization.”

Managing editor Lane Rozin said the staff expected only “a few hundred people” would sign it. By Wednesday afternoon, it was at 7,146 signatures and counting.

To Rozin and the staff, that tells them they do indeed matter.

“It’s uplifting and inspiring to see the amount of student body and alumni and local businesses (that) support us,” Rozin told the Journal-World.

The Kansan’s editor in chief, Courtney Lane, said the Kansan has not really gotten a clear answer from the Senate on why the funding cut was proposed. The student body president at KU, DaNae Estabine, said in a statement Tuesday that she declined a request for comment from the Kansan based on guidance from administrators, because it is a KU administrative policy to keep budget proposals confidential.

Estabine said she “greatly appreciate(s) and respect(s) the work the UDK does on campus to provide students with up-to-date information.”

Although the Senate’s proposal made staff feel that they weren’t important to campus, according to Gracie Wheeler, the community’s support — illustrated by the thousands who signed the petition — has been “overwhelming” and highlighted what they meant to campus.

“It shows we add value to the community, students and alumni,” Wheeler said.

Lane told the Journal-World that the Kansan had a paid staff before 2020, but it became a volunteer staff during the COVID-19 pandemic. Last year, however, the Student Senate increased the Kansan’s funding from $1.80 per student fee in 2023-24 school year to $3.64 per student fee for this school year. The paper was then able to add 16 paid editorial staff roles in a newsroom that has 150 other volunteer staffers, as well as three paid roles for the business team. These students are paid $12.50 an hour like other campus jobs, and they have a set number of hours they can get paid for each week.

Although Lane said students still often work other jobs, having paid staff has greatly improved the quality and consistency of the paper’s coverage of everything from KU athletics to arts and entertainment events on campus. She said previously, many editors would end up leaving to get jobs in journalism that were paid, causing a lot of turnover that was unsustainable to support consistent coverage.

Without the funding, the Kansan won’t be able to compete for those student journalists, Lane said. But it could be even worse.

“I honestly don’t know if we’ll be able to pay our bills with the funding proposed,” she said.

The Kansan’s ad team has sold enough ads to hit its sales goals early this year, and that revenue covers the cost of printing the product — something that Wheeler said is not funded by the KU Senate. But Wheeler also said it would not have been possible to meet those goals without the paid business staff who can dedicate more time. If there were no paid roles, it would be “very detrimental” to the business team’s ability to help student journalists, Wheeler said.

Wheeler, Lane and Rozin are all students in KU’s William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications, and they said the hands-on work offered by the Kansan enhanced their education. Rozin said being in a variety of editorial positions and wearing “a variety of hats” made him less shy and anxious for interviews. Lane said she initially planned to major in biochemistry, but her time at the Kansan made her feel more comfortable as a storyteller and she switched to majoring in journalism. Wheeler said she found a passion for free speech rights and will be attending law school, and that her time at the Kansan “changed her life.”

For now, the students are closely watching what the Senate does. Lane said the Finance Council would review the proposed student fee budget Wednesday night in a virtual meeting and vote to approve or reject the proposal. If it’s approved, it will go to the full student assembly for a vote on Feb. 19.

If the cuts are approved, Lane said the Kansan would only be able to cover “a fifth” of what it can do now. And, as the petition puts it, the editors say that would amount to “effectively silencing student media and diminishing our collective voice.”

“We can’t maintain our level of coverage if we don’t have that staff,” Lane said.