The Daily Orange will cease publication of its Friday web edition to help pay for legal fees after reaching a settlement in a lawsuit with a local business.

The lawsuit stemmed from a story about a local bar published in 2006. The paper settled out of court this past July. The paper will now publish a print and web edition Monday through Thursday, with sports content and breaking news published online over the weekends.

‘Because of the lawsuit settlement, we had to look at the budget and see what we could cut,’ said Stephanie Musat, editor in chief of The Daily Orange. ‘To cut this night of production made the most sense.’

At the beginning of the 2008 fall semester, the newspaper stopped publishing a print edition on Fridays because of the lack of students on campus that day and to cover a variety of increased expenses. A condensed staff produced content posted exclusively on The Daily Orange Web site on Fridays.

The print and web Friday cuts will be reviewed before the beginning of next semester to see if it is financially possible to again employ a staff for the Friday edition.

The paper will continue to publish football and basketball guides before home games, which are distributed on campus like the weekday editions.

‘The sports section will continue to post game previews online before weekend games,’ Musat said. ‘We’ll still be posting breaking news or about events happening over the weekend as well.’

The Daily Orange was founded in 1903 and has been an independent student newspaper since 1971. It relies on advertising revenue and donations to produce the paper and does not receive any contribution or oversight from Syracuse University.

eaconnor@syr.edu

Published on September 1, 2009 at 12:00 pm