IUSA gives out 400 NY Times

Copies of The New York Times, widely held as one of the nation's best newspapers, will be available free of charge to IU Bloomington students starting today for the next nine weeks.\nIU Student Association is sponsoring the nine-week trial period as part of their "Work Hard" initiative to improve academic life on campus.\nThe newspapers will sit on stands in Ballantine Hall, Jordan Hall, the IMU, Woodburn Hall and the Kelley School of Business. Each stand will contain about 80 newspapers, which means around 400 papers in all. The newspapers will be delivered in the early morning hours. \n"It's a trial run, and this is how they work. We want to get a nice sample out there in the buildings people use and see what they think," said Judd Arnold, vice president of IUSA. \nThe trial run is being paid for by IUSA through student activity fees. \n"It's costing a little under $3,000 for the 9-week trial," Arnold said. "We're going to look at more sources for long-term funding because obviously IUSA can't afford this for an extended period of time."\nOther newspapers including the Indianapolis Star, USA Today and the Herald-Times have tried to distribute newspapers on campus in recent years, Arnold said. \nIUSA decided to go with The New York Times because of its superior quality. \n"In the past, papers have been pushing to be on campus. We didn't feel the Indianapolis Star or the Herald-Times offered much more than the IDS for students," Arnold said. "With The New York Times, we have the best of both worlds -- a high class paper that is not threatening the IDS, which is a campus tradition."\nSteve Raymer, a professor in the school of journalism, who requires his students to read the online edition of The New York Times daily, is pleased with the announcement. \n"This is wonderful; it's fantastic," Raymer said. "The New York Times brings the world to your doorstep. I hope that after nine weeks they've found a lot of new readers whose worlds have been expanded." \nMembers of IUSA and representatives for The New York Times are looking forward to student's reactions on this initiative. \n"The folks on the IUSA really see the value of having The New York Times on campus," said Michael Mooney, a sales representative for the paper. "If this is met with positive thoughts from students, the idea is to do more."\nThis distribution program has been successful at other schools such as Penn State and Michigan State University.\nThe idea is that by having The New York Times on campus, students get ready access to national and international news," Mooney said. "This will supplement the campus news that the IDS puts out instead of taking away from what the IDS is doing." \nThe newspapers are being sold at the "educators" rate of 40 cents per copy, which is a 60 percent discount from the cover price of the newspaper.