Paper’s End

Back in 1951, the publication that launched 35-years before as the State Normal School Journal changed its name to The Easterner. (The image at left depicts  newsroom staff members in 1962. The photo below, circa 1960, shows the paper being printed on presses owned by the Cheney Free Press.) The Easterner newspaper today remains the voice of EWU’s student body, but with a twist — the “paper” will no longer appear in print. Print publication was suspended at the onset of the pandemic, explains editor Randy Kinswa, then pulled indefinitely this past summer. “The decision was made to go online due to budget restrictions for this school year,” Kinswa says. “Print media’s decline in popularity was a secondary factor.” Easterner staff weren’t happy about the move, he adds, but acknowledged its necessity. Will print return? Not likely, Kinswa says. “New media is increasingly becoming more electronically centered, and it is a top-down economy in the U.S.”