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MU and Missourian Directors Reach Decision on the Newspaper's Future COLUMBIA, MISSOURI (KBIA) - The Columbia Missourian newspaper will continue as a home-delivery print newspaper, but only five days a week rather than seven.
That decision comes from the office of M-U Provost Brian Foster who today announced the outcome of extensive discussions about the future of the newspaper.
The Saturday edition of the Missourian is being eliminated. But VOX, the weekly city supplement, will continue publication.
The direction for the Missourian has been uncertain amidst declining revenues at the paper, and a 1 million dollar annual operating deficit.
The newspaper is subsidized by M-U and serves as a laboratory for Missouri School of Journalism students as well as serving as a daily news source for the community.
Foster says the change to publishing five days per week is expected to save about 350 thousand dollars a year.
He says despite its financial challenges, the university sees the newspaper as an asset on campus.

The big point is this is just an extraordinarily important asset for the School of Journalism. And, we have to protect this asset in the same way we protect a physics lab, or a chemistry lab, or something like that. So that's the way we've thought about it.

Today's decision is the result of extensive discussions involving the university and the directors of the Missourian Publishing Association, the non-profit group that owns the newspaper.
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