THE LEAD: If anyone needed proof that IU Media School Dean David Tolchinsky doesn’t understand how media works, look no further than his Tuesday response to the leadership at the Indiana Daily Student.

In an email pursuant to the students’ explanation of how his demand that the paper run no news in its homecoming edition violated the IDS charter as well as the First Amendment, Tolchinsky decided it was time to kill the print run for the paper:

As you may recall, the Action Plan, which was endorsed by IU Bloomington campus leadership, outlines a shift from print to digital platforms. In support of the Action Plan, the campus has decided to make this shift effective this week, aligning IU with industry trends and offering experiential opportunities  more consistent with digital-first media careers of the future.

The aim is also to uphold the IDS charter—which establishes the IDS as a stand-alone financial entity with complete control over its editorial content—while addressing its structural deficit (subsidized by the campus) that has exceeded several hundred thousand dollars annually.

BACKGROUND: The IDS has been in some rough financial shape over the years, as we noted as far back as 2021. The paper had made significant cuts to the number of editions the paper would do each week and it shrunk other areas to stanch the bleeding.

The school was trying to find a way to make the paper profitable on its own, while also folding it into the school, something the students at the IDS resisted for a number of reasons, including the fear of censorship.

DOES YOU NO HOW MONEY WERKS?: Anyone who has spent any time in student media knows that there exists a balance point between reducing print to reduce cost and cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face. In the case of the IDS, the existence of a print edition guaranteed certain tangible and intangible benefits, which Tolchinsky either doesn’t know about, doesn’t care about or is too dumb to understand.

(A friend told me that Tolchinsky literally “clueless about journalism. He doesn’t know the first thing about journalism.”)

In a 2024 media appearance, then-Co-EIC Jacob Spudich outlined how the costs of the paper at that time were about $60K while it was earning back approximately $90K. The paper earned revenue not just for the ads placed in the publication itself, but also for the advertising placed on the paper’s distribution racks.

Furthermore, the paper edition tended to be more well-read in the broader Bloomington community, helping draw more readers and a more robust audience for potential advertisers. In killing the print edition, the racks go away, so the paper isn’t as visible in the community or as profitable, as the ad revenue associated with those racks will go away as well.

In addition, newspapers don’t sell ads on a day-by-day basis. Most publications sign contracts that spread the ad sales out over a protracted period of time, allowing advertisers to build campaigns of their choosing. The email the IDS editorial leadership sent to Tolchinsky makes this clear:

Our advertisers have already signed on for our fall editions, and we worry that disrupting our print product mid-semester will break our agreements with them. As the IDS aims to address our deficit, changing our print publications — which have already generated nearly $11,000 in profit over three editions this semester — works against this goal and will only further harm us.

So, how much money would the IDS have to fork over to refund any prepaid ads related to issues Tolchinsky now won’t run, and how much would it cost if the advertisers were to sue IU for force of non-performance? Someone call a contract lawyer. I’ll wait.

YOU HIT A NERVE. KEEP GOING: This is what I used to tell student journalists when they found themselves dealing with an angry source or a group of people who were making some noise on a topic they covered. It’s pretty clear that this is happening here:

• On top of the IDS’s own coverage, the local Bloomington media is making a fuss about the way the Media School is handling things.
• Indiana Public Media did a segment on the topic today, as did WTHR out of Indianapolis and FOX 59.
• The Indianapolis Star not only put the original story on blast, but it also followed up with the news of the print cuts.
• The Student Press Law Center, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and the Poynter Institute all came out with strong condemnations of this action.
• Folks have been emailing me to tell me that they have been emailing Tolchinsky to let him know this is a pile of crap. (A friend just alerted me that he also shut down his email account, as the friend’s email to Tolchinsky bounced back. You can probably still call IU: 812-856-4513)

My favorite, however, was when a friend pointed out that Tolchinsky has set his Twitter/X account to private.

(I requested he add me anyway. I doubt I’ll get through, but given the general level of aptitude he’s shown so far, I wouldn’t be surprised if he DMed me some war plans…)

There will be more time for reflection and updates coming soon.