There are things we’ve all come to know and expect at Drexel University like the trusty co-op process, endless construction, jokes about the “Drexel shaft” and seeing The Triangle on the stands every Friday morning.
These are the traditions that make Drexel, well, Drexel.
For over 90 years, The Triangle has dropped a new issue in stands across campus every Friday morning. But starting next week, that may not happen anymore. We are about to lose this time-honored pillar of the university.
The truth is, as an independent newspaper — one that does not accept financial assistance from the university — it just hasn’t been easy to make the ad sales that we need to keep the newspaper running. While articles will continue to be posted online, for now, we can no longer live up to our saying that “we put out on Fridays.”
You might ask yourselves why we have continued printing a paper despite the high cost of printing. Well, for one, we won’t be able to see your beautiful faces every morning by the Dragon statue if we retreated to our online enclaves. That is not the ideal we seek. The Triangle is a student organization, and as such a lot of emphasis is placed on community. The physical copy is more than just words on paper. A diverse staff serving in different capacities dedicate their time at Drexel for this publication — a tangible newspaper is perhaps the manifestation of their toil.
Will Drexel survive without a physical paper for students to hold in their hand? Probably. But it will be a significant blow to the historical aspect of our community.
Since 1926, The Triangle has helped to set the agenda of the university, calling out wrongdoings and injustices, celebrating the university’s many accomplishments, showcasing campus events, honoring our diversity, and giving students, faculty and administration a platform to communicate and inform. We even allegedly coined the term “dragons.”
Each of our printed issues have been safely tucked away by Drexel Archives to preserve our first-hand accounts of events at Drexel. Nearly all of them can be read online on the Archives’ website.
But now, all of this is at risk.
It’s not news that print papers have been struggling. Newspapers everywhere are experiencing cuts that are impacting the delivery of news and other timely updates and dismantling journalistic discourse entirely.
Since The Triangle is completely independent from the university financially, that means that we have maintained editorial independence as well, so we can continue to push (and occasionally overstep) the boundaries for the advocation of raw truth and critical perspective.
We’re not perfect. We’ve misquoted, we’ve gotten a few facts wrong and yeah we’ve misspelled “Philadelphia” on the front page before. But we’ve all had a great time working for this organization.
It’s our job to report the news and we think this should make the headlines this week. There’s no more time left to sugarcoat things. This is happening. And this affects us all.
Now, be assured, we won’t be giving up.