The Canadian University Press (CUP) has launched a fundraising campaign to raise $50,000 by April 13. The campaign, facilitated through indiegogo.com, has so far raised $5,316, according to the website.
CUP, a long-standing university newswire service, launched their campaign after projected a deficit of about $7,000, according to j-source.ca.
In response to this, CUP laid off all 12 of their part-time staff for the remainder of the year, cut the full-time staff’s health benefits and the president’s salary, and made other preparations to ensure no ongoing monthly expenses for the summer.
“The reason we launched a fundraising drive is because looking forward, even if we have a surplus of a couple thousand dollars, that’s not really enough to run an organization,” CUP president Erin Hudson said.
According to a cash flow analysis of CUP on studentunion.ca, despite the $50,000 fundraising target, they predict to raise only $5,000.
Hudson said CUP has several contingency plans in place, such as having different organizations or companies sponsor the salaries of their bureau chiefs on a yearly basis, with CUP retaining editorial control.
CUP has confirmed plans for one of those positions and Hudson said she expects one of their current partners will sponsor a new labour bureau chief.
Several student newspapers have left CUP in recent years and some have since co-operated to form an alternative and free newswire called the National University Wire.
Geoff Lister is the co-ordinating editor at the University of British Columbia’s student paper, the Ubyssey—a former CUP paper that has joined the National University Wire.
According to Lister, the expense of CUP membership and the lessening relevancy of newswire services are some of the reasons for leaving CUP.
“Newswire content doesn’t do that well with students. They value content that affects them and newswire content doesn’t always do that,” he said.
“I think [CUP] is too focused on itself as an organization rather than its member papers who make up the organization, who are the lifeline of the organization,” Lister said.
Colin Harris, editor-in-chief of Concordia University’s student paper, said another issue that prompted the Link to leave CUP was that the wire was promoted as a brand rather than a tool, and had done so at the expense of page views for local student papers.
“I think what’s needed is a tool at the lowest cost possible for student newspapers,” Harris said.
Lister said the bankruptcy of Campus Plus, a company which connected student newspapers to national advertising campaigns and which is still in debt to several newspapers, contributed to CUP’s financial woes.
According to Hudson, after Campus Plus’s bankruptcy, a bankruptcy trustee was brought in to collect money owed to Campus Plus and to distribute the money owed to creditors such as the Link.
The creditor payments are pending approval by an Ontario court. Since CUP is an equity creditor and owns shares in Campus Plus, they are at the bottom of the payment list.
A fundraising event for CUP called “A Pint for CUP” was held in Ottawa on March 18 at Lieutenant’s Pump. A similar event was held in Toronto.
One of the organizers of the Ottawa event, Jane Lytvynenko, is a University of Ottawa student and was, until recently, CUP’s Ottawa bureau chief. She is also the incoming national bureau chief for the organization.
“I absolutely love the organization,” Lytvynenko said. “I would not be where I am journalistically and career-wise without it, and even if I didn’t have a future role to play in CUP I’d definitely still be helping.”Hudson said the main motivation for people to support the fundraiser is community.
“With our news-wire, it allows for some really important local stories to have national legs,” she said.
