LIFESTYLE: Meet the Press

Although college students don't always do their reading assignments for class, at least they are reading something. But University students seem to be divided on where the best place to get news is. Many students are subscribers or faithful readers of The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer or The Wall Street Journal. Other students prefer newsmagazines or television news for their sources on what's happening around the globe. Still others rely almost solely on The Daily Pennsylvanian for all of their news – local, national and international. According to Kevin Isaacs, marketing program director of American Collegiate Marketing, college students are more likely to subscribe to weekly newsmagazines than to any other type of magazine. The second-most popular magazine subject, he said, is Business and Finance. But what surprises many students is that the popularity of women's fashion, music and entertainment, and sports magazines -- which rank third, fourth and fifth, respectively --are seemingly less than that of news and business magazines. "I would tend to think that the women's fashion or entertainment-geared magazines would infiltrate the University more, just because of how people tend to be," said College junior Charles Young. Engineering and Wharton sophomore John Hull shared the sentiments of many male students. "I kind of thought sports would be a little higher," he said. Isaacs said he is "not really surprised" that national and world news are becoming more important to students. "This generation of college students?are more concerned than they have ever been before about the world around them and what's going to be out there for them when they graduate," he said. "Students are more serious now than they were, more politically active and more in tune with world events." American Collegiate Marketing -- the magazine subscription company that advertises in every "Penn" notebook -- carries more than 350 magazines and specifically targets the college and education market with student discounts. Isaacs said the top 10 magazines ordered by students around the country -- in alphabetical order -- are: Glamour, Money, Penthouse, Playboy, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, Time, TV Guide, U.S. News & World Report and Vogue. But only one of those magazines, TV Guide, appears in the top 10 of the country's 100 best-selling magazines, illustrating that college students appear to read different magazines than the rest of the country. According to the 1994 edition of The World Almanac and Book of Facts, the three most-read magazines in the United States are Modern Maturity, the American Association of Retired Persons' Bulletin and Reader's Digest, all of which are geared toward older audiences. Sociology Professor Diana Crane said that while students reading more newsmagazines may represent "an encouraging new trend," the reasons may also be economical. "People may have less money than they have had before, or they are reluctant to spend more money," she said. "Maybe they just don't feel they can spend the money on entertainment magazines." But, Crane added, since college students are more likely to be Democrats, and there is a Democratic President of the United States in office, "there is more interest in what's going on in the world," and students "feel more involved." A 1992 Ivy League Poll, sponsored by former University Adjunct Assistant Professor of American Civilization Frank Luntz, revealed that nearly 80 percent of Ivy League students read at least their school newspaper on a regular basis. At the University, 88 percent of students said they read The Daily Pennsylvanian on a regular basis, which is a higher percentage than any other Ivy League school. And almost 48 percent read The New York Times, 23 percent read a local paper, 15 percent read USA Today and 8 percent read The Wall Street Journal. College senior Chris Forman, director of finance at Penn Student Agencies, said student preference was the reason why PSA dropped The Philadelphia Inquirer and USA Today as options for students last year. "Students were primarily interested in The New York Times and we felt that we could provide a better service to the students by focusing mainly on the Times," he said. Wharton senior Chris Gobalakrishna, director of newspapers at PSA, said approximately 300 students currently have newspaper subscriptions with PSA. About half of those students, he said, buy the papers for information purposes, and half buy them for classes such as communications, history, English and various Wharton classes. Gobalakrishna added that a number of students get subscriptions only because their parents have purchased subscriptions for them. Crane said that other recent data suggest that college graduates are more likely to read newspapers and newsmagazines regularly than the general public is. Crane also said that in general, television news is gaining popularity with people, causing newspaper reading to decline gradually. According to the Almanac, 26 daily newspapers in the United Stated either merged or were discontinued in 1992. The total number of daily newspapers published in the U.S., as of February, 1993 is 1,570. One possible reason for this, Crane said, is that newspapers are usually geared toward a particular place -- like a city or suburb -- whereas television news is more all-encompassing. But according to recent statistics, Crane said, college graduates read more newspapers and magazines than the rest of the public, even though they watch about the same amount of television news. The percentage of people who regularly watch television news, though, is a whopping 75 percent. But the Ivy League poll reports that students once again differ from the general population, as the average student watches only about 2.7 hours of television news per week, and almost 47 percent say they watch no television news at all. College junior Alison Cote said she obtains national and international news from ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, but that most students, in her opinion, are more concerned with University news. "Most people care more about what's happening on campus than world news, but I think that for the most part the people I associate with seem to keep up," she said. College freshman Jennifer Cohen said she also watches television news regularly -- the 11 p.m. news on channel six -- but mainly because of time constraints. "It's kind of hard because with schoolwork there's not enough time," she said. "If I had time to read the paper, I should be doing homework instead." Cohen added that she thinks print news is better than television news, because "TV is so exaggerated." Regardless of how they obtain their news, many students said they are more familiar with events happening at the University than with news from around the globe. And although the DP is most often recognized for its coverage of campus news, some students said they depend on the DP's Associated Press World Page for most of their national and international news. Wharton freshman David Hunt said he depends "mostly on the DP" for news, and that students tend to be mostly "up on stuff at Penn." "I don't think they care too much [about world news]," he said. "Maybe because it doesn't directly affect them now." Hull said he did not agree. "For most classes people need to keep up on current events," he said, adding that "basic interests for jobs" also play a big role in students keeping up with current news.