Serving the Rutgers community

since 1869. Independent since

1980.

WEDNESDAY APRIL 17, 2019RUTGERS UNIVERSITY—NEW BRUNSWICK ONLINE AT DAILYTARGUM.COM

VOLUME 151, ISSUE 47 • UNIVERSITY ... 3 • OPINIONS ... 6 • INSIDE BEAT... 8• DIVERSIONS ... 9• SPORTS ... BACK

VOTE YES TO KEEP THE DAILY TARGUM INDEPENDENT

RefeRendum 2 ApRil 17, 2019

MELISSA HAYESTARGUM ALUMNA

For 150 years, The Daily Tar-gum has been a source of infor-mation, a forum for diverse voices on campus and a living classroom. The paper holds the Rutgers ad-ministration accountable, it show-cases the University’s uniqueness and tells stories you will not find anywhere else.

The Targum is produced by stu-dents for students and it cannot exist without your help. We need your vote to pass referendum. I say “we” because even though I graduated 15 years ago, The Daily Targum has and always will be a part of me.

The Targum prepared me for life after college. It taught me how to be a reporter, writer, editor and manager. I even learned how to develop film (back when we had a dark room) and lay out the paper. Thanks to a Targum alumnus, I landed an internship in The Re-cord’s statehouse bureau my se-nior year. Having that internship under my belt and being able to say I worked for the Targum is what landed me my first job after graduation.

And the Targum helped me secure jobs for years down the

An inside look at The Daily Targum

Editor-in-Chief urges you to VOTE YES for Referendum

Located in the office of The Daily Targum are records of every single issue since the 1970s. Each of the volumes in the photo above contain an entire semester’s worth of news, op-eds and photos. GARRETT STEFFE / ASSOCIATE PHOTO EDITOR

anchor of CNBC’s Squawk Box, as well as the editor of Politico and sports editor of The New York Times. And the former

editor-in-chief from my first year of college just covered Vir-ginia’s epic Final Four win for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

I hope you will help us continue our 150-year tradition of serving the Rutgers community by sup-porting referendum.

To the reader:

WHY SHOULD YOU VOTE YES?

Referendum 2019 is crucial for The Daily Targum’s existence, but it is also imperative for the students of Rutgers University—New Bruns-wick. The Targum is the second-old-est collegiate newspaper in the na-tion, existing since 1869. For more than 150 years, we have created a daily paper, by students for students.

The Targum covers Rutgers University, its students, athletes and professors, as well as college life, the surrounding communities and the ideas and viewpoints dis-covered. We proposed scarlet as the school color, we reported on the first collegiate football game in the world and we have continued to break news stories ever since.

We are constantly expanding and adapting in order to represent the Rutgers community. With 14 editors, we have rebooted the “Humans of RU” project on Ins-tagram and Facebook, as well as created the “RU Streetwear” proj-ect. We want to involve and rep-resent the diverse student body of Rutgers, on social media and within our paper.

We have also expanded cover-age across all desks. The sports desk created a new section called, “Spotlight Knight,” which will help tell the stories of athletes, both Di-vision I and club sports. The Inside Beat desk has expanded its cover-age to include an “Artist Spotlight,” to highlight the underground mu-sic scene at Rutgers. These are just a few examples of what we have re-cently done to better represent the

Rutgers community. This paper is as much yours as it is ours, and we hope you take part in supporting your school newspaper.

WHAT HAPPENS IF THE TARGUM DOESN’T

PASS REFERENDUM?We have been independent from

the University since 1980, which is vital for our coverage to re-main unbiased and investigative. The Targum would shut down if Referendum did not pass, or be-come absorbed by the University, making the funding fall under the student fee, and thus becoming non-refundable. Additionally, with the loss of independence, Rutgers would control what we publish. We would be prohibited from publishing anything critical of or detrimental to the University and

its image. More importantly, we would not be able to exercise our right to journalistic integrity and free speech.

WHAT DO WE USE FUNDING FOR?

We print 10,000 copies of the paper Monday through Friday. It is a full-time job for editors, work-ing five days a week from 4:00 p.m. until the paper is finished — usually between 1 and 2 a.m. We also utilize funds for equipment used by the editors, such as video and camera equipment, the soft-ware we license, the printing and delivery costs and the travel costs to cover our athletic teams.

HOW CAN YOU VOTE? I implore you to take a few

minutes to vote. Log into

getinvolved.rutgers.edu and scroll down to The Daily Tar-gum link. Click the yes button! Be sure to click next, and then submit. Students with 105 or fewer credits can vote, as grad-uating seniors will not be paying the term bill next year, and will not be impacted by Referendum. Students in the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy can vote if they have 179 credits or fewer. Do not let Rutgers University—New Brunswick become the only Big Ten school without a newspaper. We have stood by you for 150 years, and we now ask you to stand by us.

Sincerely, Rebecca BrightEditor-in-Chief/Co-CEO of the Targum Publishing Co.

The Daily Targum has been through many different fonts and layout designs, but one thing remains constant: a passion for student journalism. For decades, the paper has remained independent, publishing content every single day for Rutgers students and faculty. DUSTIN NILES / PHOTO EDITOR

road because the paper’s rich history and record of award-win-ning journalism carries weight in the industry. It is how I landed my dream job at my hometown paper, The Record, back in 2010. I left on a high note in late 2015 after spending a year on the campaign trail covering the race for the Republican presidential nomination. I have since moved on to a new career, but I still find myself falling back on things I first learned during my days at the Targum.

But, perhaps the best thing the Targum gave me is an amaz-ing group of friends, several who went into journalism and many who never intended to, but found something beneficial in working at the paper. Among my friends there are teachers, lawyers, a pharmacist, a soft-ware engineer and a yoga in-structor. The beauty of the Tar-gum is that it has something to offer everyone.

We have some incredible alumni – one founded his own hedge fund, another is the drummer in Mercy Union and The Gaslight Anthem. CNN Digital’s vice president for news, opinion and programming is a Targum alumna, as is the

RefeRendum 3 ApRil 17, 2019

Time is running out: Vote for free independent news

The Targum is where students learn to be journalists BECKY QUICKTARGUM ALUMNA

I love Rutgers. But I often feel like I graduated from The Daily Targum because I spent so much of my student career there, and because what I learned at the Targum is what got me a job

after graduation. It is where I learned to write and communi-cate, and it is why I was hired by The Wall Street Journal straight out of school.

Every year, countless students pass through the Targum’s doors. They learn writing, reporting, editing, photography, production,

advertising and business skills, not to mention responsibility, professionalism and teamwork. Having a daily newspaper is an incredible on-campus training ground and a real advantage that Rutgers provides to students and prospective students. And it is a point of pride that Rutgers has

the second-oldest campus news-paper in the country — founded in 1869, seven years before The Daily Princetonian was founded just down the road.

And then there is the service that the Targum provides the entire University community. It is how students and faculty

alike learn about campus news and University life. It provides a common thread to bind and inform the community. It is hard to imagine Rutgers with-out a daily newspaper. Student funding is key to the Targum’s survival. I urge you to vote yes for referendum.

BRENDAN INTINDOLA TARGUM ALUMNUS

There will be an ask later, but first, a Rutgers story.

Spring 1985. A brutal winter in the past. I had a semester of Rut-gers locked down and settled in for the long road toward the de-gree promised land. I had a great academic and social life living on the edge of civilization in Voor-hees Hall, Room 420, grinding out the 100-200 levels.

Like so many other new students before and after me, I attained the point of: “Right. This is going to work.” Yet a hole remained in my Rutgers experience, with a daily reminder. Each morning — and yes, some afternoons — at Neilson Dining Hall: Raisin Bran, black cof-fee and The Daily Targum.

When I first arrived at Rutgers in the fall, I had what turned out to be one of the most consequential surprises of my life. What? The paper is published every day? Is this for real? How is this done? I became a regular reader of this independent — i.e. not part of the University — student-run newspa-per that connects the vast institu-tion that is Rutgers.

Now, I wanted in. The Targum to me is many

things, but first it was evidence that I now belonged to a conse-quential, substantial organization.

Rutgers is immense, diverse and ever-changing. I was a single un-dergraduate among thousands who reside on campuses spread across miles. And the Targum bound us as one. North. Central. South. In-state, out-of-state. In-ternational. We are all “On the Banks.” The Targum is proof.

It strives to provide vital, essen-tial institutional cohesion. A com-mon identity, a history and — for those who have made it all happen for the past 151 years — practical know-how and varied career op-portunities. The Targum alumni occupy significant positions in the news business, some at The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Bloomberg and in many other fields.

I joined the newspaper. Staff writer. Associate News Editor. Se-nior News Editor. Editor in Chief. Nearly four years of 40-50 hour weeks, and 12-credit semesters, to create what they call at The Wall Street Journal (where I was an editor) the “Daily Miracle:” Producing a newspaper every day. It is not easy. Nor cheap.

Now the ask: It is immensely important for you to vote “YES” in the Targum referendum. A “YES” vote is a green light for a small term-bill fee once a se-mester — the cost of a round of lattes, or a burrito — to help fund the newspaper.

It became much more than just producing a daily newspaper. It is the foundation of a long, successful ca-reer in Manhattan — Reuters News, The New York Stock Exchange, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg — built on what I learned at the Tar-gum and with the support of friends I met there. Lifelong friends. And my wife of 26 years. It is more than just another student activity.

Not only vote for the Targum, JOIN the Targum. There is al-ways a need for reporters, editors, photographers, videographers, business majors and graphic de-signers with passion and enthusi-asm. It could very well be the best undergraduate, or graduate, deci-sion you can make. It was for me, by far. You will learn new skills ev-ery day for many professions —

teaching, writing, law, production, design and more — not just news.

For more than 150 years, the Targum has chronicled our emi-nent institution. A great universi-ty requires a great independent newspaper, dedicated to the com-munity it serves.

Vote YES for the Targum refer-endum today.

And JOIN the Targum!

Targum alumni who have graduated from Rutgers have gone on to become not only journalists, but also successful teachers, pharmacists, software engineers, yoga instructors and more. MICA FINEHART / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Every year, many students are involved in the production, layout and business of The Daily Targum. Above is a photo of the most recent editorial board, a diverse range of students with varying skills and interests. THE DAILY TARGUM