After 50 years of production, the Black & White has arrived at a crossroads. With declining revenue and a shrinking staff, the paper faces some tough decisions about how to maintain financial stability. Our problems aren’t unique—they’re the same ones newspapers around the country have been facing on a daily basis—but we’ve had to make sacrifices to keep the paper running.

Our declining revenue is largely a result of the Black & White’s decision last year to stop charging students and teachers for the paper. The paper stands by this decision and doesn’t intend to charge students and teachers for the paper in the future. Additionally, the paper will not request direct school funding during these financially difficult times because it wishes to preserve its editorial freedom by remaining as financially independent as possible.

You may have noticed that Spectator is no longer printed separately as its own paper. Printing a separate Spectator along with the main paper, both in partial color, was financially sound when the paper charged for subscriptions. But after the Black & White started giving away papers to students and staff for free, the paper stopped breaking even.

Because of its unfortunate financial situation, the paper had to cut back on expenditures this year. The Black & White staff printed issue 5 Feb. 8 and the two previous editions of the papers without any color and folded Spectator into the main paper. These changes may create a less visually appealing paper, but they generate a small profit each cycle and are the most sustainable way of continuing to distribute print copies on a large scale.

Next year, the Black & White will reduce Spectator from a separate paper to a single section, like News or Arts. Spectator started in 2002 because there were more staff members than available positions, but times have changed. In 2002, the Black & White had a total of 125 staff members. This year, there are 85, and next year, due to MCPS budget cuts that decreased the number of intro journalism classes, the staff will further shrink.

Removing color printing and discontinuing a separate Spectator is a bitter pill to swallow. But if it means the Black & White can survive long past its 50th birthday and keep its editorial freedom intact, it will be well worth it.