What makes PAW different from other alumni magazines?
Three words: frequency, ownership, and independence.
Frequency. PAW publishes 17 issues a year, making it by far the world's most frequently published alumni magazine. Most alumni magazines are quarterlies. The other Ivy League magazines publish between nine and six issues a year.
Because of its frequency, PAW annually publishes many more pages (often more than 1,000, including covers) and is "closer to the news" than other alumni magazines. Its timely reporting on the administration, academics, student life, sports, and alumni activities is unmatched. A typical issue devotes more than 25,000 words--the equivalent of a small book, and well over half the magazine--to alumni news in the form of Class Notes and Memorials. In a typical year, PAW probably publishes half a million words related in one way or another to alumni.
Ownership. Almost all alumni magazines are owned and operated by the universities or colleges they represent. By contrast, PAW in a real sense is owned by the alumni it serves. As stated at the top of our masthead, it is "An independent magazine by alumni for alumni." PAW is independently incorporated and governed by 14 trustees, and more than half the magazine's budget comes from alumni subscriptions. As one veteran member of our Editorial Committee puts it, PAW is "the alumni's magazine about the university, not the university's magazine for alumni."
Independence. In words our masthead has carried for more than sixty years, PAW's purpose is "to record news of the alumni and at the same time to review without partiality the achievements and problems of the administration, the faculty, and the student body of Princeton University."
PAW's relationship with the university it covers is unusual, if not unique. It is structurally, editorially, and to a large degree financially independent of Princeton. PAW's governing structure distinguishes between "church and state"; the board of trustees consists of an Editorial Committee overseeing editorial matters and a Publications Committee responsible for business operations. The board as a whole (only two of whose 14 members are university administrators) is responsible for the hiring and firing of the editor, who is charged in the bylaws with "sole responsibility for the editorial content" of PAW.
This remarkable degree of structural independence, coupled with a university tradition of noninterference in editorial matters, means that the editor alone decides what goes into PAW. Thus, the magazine has the freedom to fulfill its mission by reporting on the university's "achievements and problems" (emphasis added). University administrators recognize the long-term value of such independence.

What is your vision for the magazine as its editor?
My goal is to publish a magazine that, over the course of a year, contains a variety of stories that appeal to its very broad readership, which ranges in age, more or less, from 22 to 100, and includes people who care fiercely about Princeton and some who care very little. I hope that each issue has something that will appeal to every reader other than his or her Class Notes column.

Give us more details about PAW's governing structure.
PAW's parent organization is Princeton Alumni Publications, Inc., a nonprofit corporation incorporated under the laws of the State of New Jersey. Under the rules of the Internal Revenue Service, the corporation is a 501(c)3 organization, which means that donations to it are tax-deductible.
As previously stated, two standing committees govern the magazine's operation. The Editorial Committee oversees editorial content and integrity. The Publications Committee approves the budget and oversees all business matters, including advertising and circulation. There is also an Executive Committee, which governs between meetings of the full board. Its four members are the chairs and vice-chairs of the Editorial and Publications committees; the chair of the Editorial Committee is ex officio the chair of the Executive Committee.
According to the bylaws, six of the seven members of the Editorial Committee must be alumni in the field of journalism ("undergraduate or graduate alumni who are working or former writers or editors"). Of these, two are elected by the Executive Committee of the Alumni Council, two are appointed by the president of the university with the advice and consent of the board's Executive Committee, and two are appointed by the Editorial Committee itself. The seventh member of the Editorial Committee is a Princeton faculty member appointed by the committee.
The Publications Committee is composed of three alumni in publishing or some related field, such as advertising, who are appointed by the president of the university, and four ex officio members: the vice-chair of the Alumni Council, the chair of the Class Affairs Committee of the Alumni Council, the director of the Alumni Council, and the university's vice-president for public affairs.
All trustees who are not ex officio serve staggered, three-year terms.

How long has this governing structure been in place?
Since 1991. Before then, PAW was owned by Princeton University Press, which has ties to the university but is structurally independent of it. This was the basis of PAW's editorial independence. When P.U.P. owned PAW, oversight of the magazine was by a Board of Editorial Direction and a Publication Board, which were analogous to the current Editorial and Publications committees of Princeton Alumni Publications.

What sorts of structural and financial arrangements do the other Ivy League alumni magazines have with their institutions?
It varies. Yale's magazine is comparable to Princeton's. Harvard's is also self-incorporated but is heavily subsidized by the university. (Its budget is more than twice PAW's, and it publishes only six issues a year.) Several are owned by their alumni associations. Several others are owned by their universities but are structured in ways that give them a degree of editorial independence.

Tell us about PAW's budget.
PAW publishes on a break-even basis, and for Fiscal Year 1999 its budget is $1,350,000. On the expenditure side, printing and mailing costs are $655,000 (49 percent), while salaries, freelance fees, and other overhead costs are $695,000 (51 percent).
The revenue side breaks down as follows: alumni subscriptions, $700,000 (52 percent); advertising, $442,000 (33 percent); university subsidy, $137,400 (10 percent); and other subscriptions and miscellaneous, $70,600 (5 percent).
Advertising revenues come from three sources: local and university, $287,000 (65 percent); Princeton Exchange (classified), $85,000 (19 percent); and national advertising as part of the Ivy League Magazine Network, $70,000 (16 percent).
"Alumni subscriptions" include undergraduate class subscriptions ($681,400) and subscriptions purchased by the Association of Princeton Graduate Alumni ($18,600). Those graduate alumni who join the A.P.G.A. receive PAW as one of the benefits of membership. Approximately 1,750 of Princeton's 18,000 graduate alumni are members. Included in "other subscriptions" are those purchased by the university ($67,000) for faculty members, senior administrators, and students (who receive the magazine by bulk delivery to the dormitories). The total number of subscriptions is about 58,600. This figure is increasing gradually as more of the larger Princeton classes of recent years enter the alumni stream.

How does PAW determine the subscription rates for classes?
It's complicated, but basically two factors are involved. The first is the percentage increase from year to year in PAW's net expenditures (production and overhead costs, less income from advertising and other nonsubscription sources); the second is something called "the step-rate formula." Each year, a class's subscription rate goes up by the percentage increase in net expenditures, up to a maximum of 8 percent (for more on this, see below). In addition, the rates for some classes go up by a fixed "step-rate," which for 1999 ranges between 2 and 8 percent.
The step-rate formula creates a graduated scale, so that younger classes pay subscription rates under the real cost of the magazine, while older classes pay approximately at cost. For Fiscal Year 1999, the rates for classes range from $4.89 to $19.40 per class member. The actual cost of producing and mailing seventeen issues a year to a subscriber is $23.04, or $1.36 an issue.

Isn't this formula unfair to the older classes?
It's true that older classes in effect are subsidizing younger classes, on the theory that young alumni are more financially strapped. But the older classes were once younger classes and benefited from this arrangement, too.

What's the recent history of efforts to manage PAW's finances?
One of the most obvious ways for a magazine to contain costs is to lower the number of issues published per year. As its anachronistic title suggests, PAW was once published weekly, or at least weekly during the 35 weeks that the university was in session. Its frequency had dropped to 28 issues a year by 1977, when PAW became a biweekly publishing 21 times a year. Since 1989-90, it has published 17 issues a year.
At the same time that PAW became a biweekly, the university responded to concerns about increasing pressures on class treasuries by agreeing to make an annual contribution to PAW of $35,000. (PAW's budget at that point was roughly $200,000.) In return, the university received 20 pages a year for messages to alumni (these now appear as The President's Page).
In 1982, when PAW's budget reached $538,000, the university took an additional step to help the magazine's finances. It ceased publication of the quarterly University and added the $29,000 thus saved to the $35,000 it was already giving to PAW, resulting in a new base contribution of $64,000. The university also agreed to increase this contribution annually by the same rate as PAW's overall budget, with the proviso that the increase in the university's subsidy not exceed 10 percent in any given year.
In 1992, again in response to the concerns of classes, the university agreed to lift the 10 percent cap on the annual increase in its subsidy. At the same time, PAW's trustees placed a cap of 8 percent and a floor of 2 percent on the increase in class subscription rates. This policy went into effect in Fiscal Year 1993. It means that no class will see its subscription rate increase more than 8 percent above any step-rate increase in effect for the class. Thus, a class with a step-rate of 5.5 percent is subject to a maximum increase in its subscription rate of 13.5 percent per year.
The 2 percent floor on subscription-rate increases assures that, even in flush years, some money will continue to flow into PAW's Escrow Fund. For many years, PAW has maintained this interest-bearing fund to provide for budget contingencies (mainly steep and unanticipated increases in the costs of postage and paper). The fund is now tied to the formula for determining the university's subsidy and the increase in class subscription rates. According to a policy established by the Publications Committee in 1992, the Escrow Fund must be at least 5 percent of PAW's budget but no more than 10 percent. If it passes 10 percent, the excess is credited toward the following year's class subscription fees.

Many would argue that the university's support of the magazine--just 11 percent of the operating budget--is far too small. Why shouldn't it be increased substantially?
There are different ways of measuring "university support." The subsidy is direct support, for which the university gets the use of twenty pages a year in PAW. But the university also supports the magazine indirectly, through the purchase of subscriptions for its faculty, staff, and undergraduates, and the purchase of advertising. The total of direct and indirect university support comes to about 22 percent of the operating budget, with the balance borne by other advertising (22 percent) and alumni subscriptions (56 percent).
Of course, the university has the resources to increase its subsidy of PAW. It has resisted doing so, in part because of its own budgetary constraints, but mainly because it recognizes the value of an independent PAW. Over the years, PAW's various governing bodies and several ad-hoc review committees--including one convened in the fall of 1993 by the Alumni Council (The Special Committee on the Princeton Alumni Weekly)--have periodically examined the magazine's finances and have concluded that the mix and percentages of income sources are about right. Underlying this view is an implicit understanding that financial and editorial independence are related, and that an independent alumni magazine ultimately works in the best interests of both the alumni and the university.

Are there other ways besides reducing PAW's frequency that the magazine could be produced more cheaply?
Some people have recommended changing the longstanding policy of sending PAW to all undergraduate alumni, including the 56 percent who in any given year don't pay their class dues. Several Ivy League magazines maintain selective subscription lists, removing those alumni who do not contribute to their classes or to their universities' annual funds. Princeton's subscription policy is selective only for graduate alumni, on the reasonable assumption that most of them feel a primary allegiance to their undergraduate institutions. But the notion that all undergraduate alumni should receive PAW has never been seriously challenged. The magazine is the primary link between Princeton and its alumni, and it is one of the reasons for Princeton's remarkable alumni spirit.

Would PAW survive if it were mailed only to those alumni who pay their class dues?
It would, but as a very different magazine. Such a drastic drop in the number of subscribers would hurt the magazine in two ways: directly, by reducing subscription income; and indirectly, by lowering its advertising rates, which are based in part on the number of subscribers. Also, halving the number of copies printed would roughly double their unit cost--an increase that would be passed on to subscribers.
The Special Committee on the Princeton Alumni Weekly considered and rejected this and other alternatives. The committee's report was published in the March 9, 1994, PAW. (Copies of this report are available on request to J.I. Merritt, Princeton Alumni Weekly, 194 Nassau St., Princeton, NJ 08542.)

What happens if a class doesn't pay its bill for subscriptions?
On rare occasions, a class has been unable or unwilling to pay its bill during the fiscal year in which it is due. The bill is carried over to the next year's books as a bad debt and has to be absorbed by the other classes.

Tell us about PAW's staffing.
PAW has seven staff members. On the editorial side, there is an editor-in-chief, a managing editor, an associate editor for Class Notes, a staff writer with editorial responsibilities for news, and an assistant editor for Sports. On a contractual basis, we also use the services of a part-time art director. On the business side, the magazine has a publisher/business manager and a half-time advertising director. The staff and magazine operations are housed in commercial space on Nassau Street. On the basis of annual pages produced per editorial staff member, PAW is one of the leanest magazines in the Ivy League.
All staffers are university employees "leased" by Princeton Alumni Publications on an ongoing basis. This arrangement enables PAW to take advantage of the medical and other benefits that the university offers its approximately five thousand employees--but at significantly lower cost than if PAW were to purchase these services itself. Operationally, staff members report to the editor-in-chief, who reports to the board of Princeton Alumni Publications.

Tell us something about the purposes of, and editorial policies for, the different sections of the magazine.
Starting from the beginning, there's the Letters department. Its main purpose--to serve as a forum for alumni opinion--seems obvious enough. PAW may publish the liveliest letters of any alumni magazine. Because of our frequency, it's possible to develop a running dialogue on a topic, one that might extend over five or six issues of the magazine. Many letters we receive are patently wrongheaded, in our view, but we often publish them anyway if they seem to reflect the deeply held feelings of at least some alumni. In general, we try to be as inclusive as possible, recognizing the broad spectrum of political and social views among our 57,600 readers. Many letters are shortened, and we publish probably two-thirds of those received.
The Notebook mainly covers campus news. We strive for a variety of "hard" and "soft" news items, mixing stories of appointments, gifts, and admission results, for example, with profiles of professors and interesting statistics about Princeton. We decide which stories to publish on the basis of available space, our perception of a topic's appeal to readers, the likelihood that alumni may glean the information from other sources, and the extent to which we feel they should know about a particular subject.
On the Campus takes a student's-eye view of what's happening at Princeton. In most years we have two On the Campus writers. We give the writers as much latitude as possible in choosing their subjects and allow them a certain irreverence. The students are paid for each column we publish. Many of them have gone on to become major figures in American journalism.
The feature section follows On the Campus. We typically publish about 20 to 25 features a year, ranging in length from 1,400 to 5,000 words. We strive for a mix of stories about students, faculty members, alumni, and campus issues.
The In Review department covers the arts and media, broadly defined--books, film, music, the Web, etc.--and includes reviews and profiles of alumni writers and artists. Books by alumni and faculty are generally selected for review on the basis of their potential appeal to a readership of educated laypeople.
The Sports department covers Princeton's varsity teams in proportion to the interest each sport generates among our readers and, to a lesser extent, in proportion to each squad's success. We provide the results and records of all 30-plus varsity teams via the Scoreboard, and we recap highlights in reviews at the end of each season. We try to give proportionate coverage to men's and women's sports.
The Class Notes department is the heart of PAW. The columns are written by a corps of dedicated class secretaries, some of whom have been serving for decades. Secretaries may write about 325 words per column, and double that when reporting on a major reunion. Thanks to Class Notes, Princetonians get more timely news about their classmates than alumni of any other school.
The Memorials department is probably unique. We may be the only alumni magazine that publishes full obituaries (of 150 to 200 words) written by classmates of the deceased; most other magazines publish, at best, a list of deceased alumni.
On the last page of the magazine, we often publish First Person pieces by alumni. These generally come to the editor "over the transom" (unsolicited), and they cover a wide range of experiences. This page also carries Opinion pieces, and we run occasional historical vignettes under the rubrics Going Back and Legends.
Our reader surveys confirm the dedicated readership of all sections of the magazine. In 1997-98, the percentage of respondents reporting they read all or some of particular sections broke down as follows: Class Notes (97 percent), Notebook (82 percent), Letters (82 percent), Sports (72 percent), Memorials (68 percent), On the Campus (58 percent), features (57 percent), and In Review (56 percent).
Other surveys show that PAW is far and away the alumni's chief source of information about the university and their classmates. It is the vital link.

--J.I. Merritt '66, January 1999

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paw@princeton.edu