We at the Statesman never really felt it necessary to talk about our advertising. Every respectable college newspaper in the country, every respectable professional newspaper in the country, includes advertisements. Alas, there seems to be some confusion surrounding our advertising. So allow us now to clear a few things up.

For starters, advertisers love college newspapers. The readership consists primarily of the target audience for many businesses, the Statesman included. As far as advertisers are concerned, our issues are prime real estate. Compared to most other college newspapers in the country-we looked at a sample of the best, from the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia-we have no more advertising than any other paper our size, even less in many cases.

We too appreciate the ads. A paper as large as the Statesman has a huge operating budget, one that the university alone would not be able to provide. As such, we seem to be the only paper that cares enough about the student body to find alternative means to offset the costs of running the paper. For example, we have roughly the same size USG budget as the Press (ours is 20 percent lower) and yet we publish, on average, four times as frequently.

We make no apologies for placing ads in the paper. In fact, we are quite proud of our drawing power. Advertisers see that hundreds, if not thousands, of students read our content on a daily basis. They see that our articles are republished in such places as the New York Times and broadcast to millions of people on ABC 7 and News 12 Long Island. And they, unsurprisingly, want in on all that we have to offer.

So to the students at Stony Brook University who benefit from our advertising (everyone): you’re welcome. Stay tuned for even more money-saving ads next semester, only in the Stony Brook Statesman!