The clock is ticking for the Daily Tar Heel, as the 123-year-old newspaper attempts to solve the biggest problem facing modern journalism – finances.

“We have about two years of money in our savings account, if we didn’t save anything, before we run out of money,” new general manager Betsy O’Donovan said.

She said the DTH has been running a revenue deficit since 2011. That deficit has reached over $200,000.

This has resulted in a number of changes for the current school year, including offering the print edition of the paper four days per week instead of five.

The DTH will stop running Tuesday versions of the print paper, but O’Donovan said it will bring the Tuesday edition back when major events like a basketball game or an election occur.

Editor-in-Chief Jane Wester said her goal is to get the newspaper to continue to push its digital platform.

“We’re forced by money into doing this digital-only edition once a week, but we’ll never really learn to do that well unless we focus on that every day,” Wester said.

The problems facing UNC’s student newspaper are hardly unique to Chapel Hill.

As the importance of the internet continues to expand, print advertisement, which is the primary moneymaker for newspapers, becomes less valuable.

O’Donovan said it is the job of newspapers everywhere to figure out their role in this new landscape.

“One thing that has been a huge challenge for every news organization is figuring out how to integrate themselves into a platform like Facebook or Twitter,” she said. “How do we have a meaningful presence there and connect with readers and viewers?”

As part of this learning process, the DTH will be experimenting with new ways of presenting its content to readers, including offering obituaries and wedding announcements and making a mobile app available to smartphone users.

“We’re going to be 125 in 2018,” O’Donovan said. “What we’re doing now is building out the future for the next 125 generations of the Daily Tar Heel.”

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