After Thursday’s edition, the Daily Egyptian will not publish a newspaper until August.

That means you will not find our usual twice-a-week summer editions on newsstands. Our summer issues will not print this year due to a combination of two factors: a lack of online classes and a lack of a printer.

The lack of classes is key because all DE summer staffers must be enrolled in at least three credit hours. 

But the options for those on-campus courses are slim. Many students have opted to head home for the summer and get their coursework done online. 

Only one journalism course is offered in Carbondale for the summer semester. Additionally, many of our staffers have internships at professional news organizations for the summer. Others are graduating and moving back home or to their new jobs.

That has left us with three students to run this operation, and while our summer staff hasn’t been much larger in the past, this would be tough to muster. 

The other side of this — the lack of a printer — could make this temporary pause on printing permanent. 

One may ask, “Well, why not print at the same press you’re using to publish this very edition?”

We’d love to, but university officials have pushed the DE to use a poorer-quality printer.

After an error was found in the process of procuring a contract with a printer, we are hoping for a re-bid to see who can get the contract to print the Daily Egyptian.

Regardless of the outcome of the re-bid, the Daily Egyptian is not leaving the campus community.

Of course, once campus fills back up in August, so will the newsroom. 

If we cannot resolve our issues in finding a printer, we will continue to bring you all the news at SIU via the internet and social media. We relish the opportunity to build our online presence as well as continue to give people the familiarity of picking up a newspaper.

Be sure to grab a copy Thursday’s “Semester in Photos” edition to check out the best work our photographers have done over the past five months.

And as always, thank you for reading the Daily Egyptian.  

Tyler Davis, a senior from Chicago Heights studying journalism, is the Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Egyptian