Talk:The Stony Brook Statesman

Well, what we seem to have here is the history of Statesman according to David Razler. It is full of errors of fact from the very first sentence, and deserves nothing less than a complete & factual rewrite with the collaboration of involved editors & staffers from the past 50 or so years.

Welcome to the brave new world of "information" where anyone can type anything they damn well please and have it "published" as the truth. Oh, that first sentence with the wrong facts: Sucolian began in February, 1958. You can look it up - but not here. Billstoller 22:49, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Bill Stoller, Statesman '71

Where does the circulation figure of 12,000 come from? A recent copy of The Statesman that I have gives there estimated readership at 30,000, but a newspaper's own reports of readership aren't necessarily accurate. Also, I edited the part about the paper being independent of the student government, as a recent USG budget indicates that The Statesman did recieve funds from the student gov't. -Mairi

The 12,000 figure was mine. That number is, to my understanding, how many copies are printed, which is the strict definition of circulation. Some newspapers and magazines claim a higher "readership" figure, based on the number of people they believe pass along a single copy. Hence, readership can be higher than circulation, at least in theory.

I guess we disagree about independence. To me, the Statesman is independent because such a small percentage (less than 10 percent, last I checked) of its revenue comes from the student government. The rest is from advertising. In other words, if the student government took away the paper's funding, it would continue to publish. To me, that means it's independent. -- djoachim

David Joachim (editor in chief of the Statesman, 1990-1992)


 * It's funny you should say that, considering Statesman has stated they may not publish after a budget cut has been made the funding they receive from the USG: http://pcli.org/2010/04/stony-brook-statesman-has-funding-slashed/ 71.247.43.111 (talk) 04:56, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

I have fixed the information about when Stateman printed thrice weekly. In 1984, when I was Managing Editor, I was responsible for the Monday and Wednesday issues, with Elizabeth Wasserman, the editor-in-chief, being responsible for the other one. I was in 1985 that we started experiencing the financial problems that led to the paper being printing only twice a week.

Barry Wenig '85

Who suggested merging this article with the Stony Brook University article? A college newspaper is a distinct entity from the university where it is housed.

Thank you.
To whoever cleaned this entry up. Its more accurate, in brief, as of today than its been previously. Maybe it can stay that way. Billstoller (talk) 19:28, 16 December 2007 (UTC)