The Howard University Hilltop, the only daily historically black college newspaper, has temporarily halted publication as it works to resolve a debt problem.

According to Ron Harris, the university’s director of communications, the independently-run student newspaper had problems generating ad revenue and had not received payment for a number of ads that had already run in the paper. As a result, it was unable to pay its printer, The Washington Times, and the paper's policy board decided -- along with the student editors -- to suspend publication rather than go deeper into debt.

Drew Costley, a Howard senior and The Hilltop's top editor for the 2007-08 academic year, told the BlackCollegeView news service the action was taken because of more than $48,000 in outstanding printing costs. He also said $20,000 is missing from the paper's account.

Costley said he disagreed with the decision to suspend publication, calling it "illegal" because there wasn't a quorum present when the vote was taken at the March 6 meeting.

Since then, the newspaper has come up with the money to pay its printing bill and some student reporters and editors have agreed to forgo their salaries in a cost-cutting move, Harris told BlackAmericaWeb.com. The policy board was scheduled to meet at 4 p.m. eastern time Wednesday to discuss plans to keep the newspaper on track financially.

The policy board met Wednesday afternoon to discuss plans to put and keep the newspaper on a solid footing and determine when publication would resume.

Additionally, faculty, staff, alumni and friends have made direct contributions to help The Hilltop, which had been publishing since 1924. 

Senior Josh Thomas, The Hilltop’s managing editor, said part of the problem was that instead of paying all the bills each summer, as had been done traditionally, “This year, we started trying to pay proactively throughout the year” and ran into cash flow problems.

He also said The Washington Times would continue to print the student paper.

“The Times doesn’t seem to be turned off by the situation. Up until this year, we didn’t pay our printing bill until summer… The Times is willing to print whenever we’re ready to.”
 
Thomas said an announcement would be made Thursday on when publication would resume. However, Journal-isms, a blog written by veteran journalist Richard Prince, reported Wednesday night that the print version of the newspaper would be suspended until May, but that online publication would continue.

"There was never an 'if they would continue publication,'" Harris said. "I want to make that clear. How would that look -- an institution like Howard University not having a newspaper? That never came up. We will have a newspaper, and it should be publishing soon."