Staff Editorial
Universities hire people to promote them in a positive way; however, that is not the job of the student publications. Two universities have been under fire, possibly for reporting on “ugly” news that does not always make the school they write for look its very best. Their punishment, for at least one of them, for doing their jobs as journalists have been budget cuts.
Because of content not being liked by readers, administrators and perhaps others, the reaction has been to cut budgets, or at least try. We first saw this occur with Wichita State, after a disagreement with the WSU Student Government Association (SGA). The Sunflower at Wichita State has become widely known for their stories containing controversial information, and their budget has been reduced from $105,000 down to $55,000 .
Newsflash everyone: It is not the job of student journalists to make a university look good. It is their job to know what’s happening around campus and to report on it. If a student publication is reporting on negative events occurring on campus, then maybe the university should be doing what it can to prevent those things from happening instead of taking it out on the journalists for simply doing their jobs. News isn’t always fun to hear about- it’s not always going to be sunshine and rainbows. This isn’t some fairytale. This is real life, and journalists will report as such.
Recently, Emporia State University has had to make many funding cuts to different school organizations. The one taking the largest cut is The Bulletin, their school newspaper. The student newspaper has been closely following these recent student fee discussions by ESU’s Associated Student Government (ASG). These cuts would result in a 48 percent decrease over the next four years (approximately a $10,000 decrease every year, according to The Bulletin). While only the first year’s cuts went through the ASG’s vote, The Bulletin showed what a future at ESU would look like if these cuts passed by–cutting their own video feed to students of the ASG meeting when they voted to cut The Bulletin’s funding. They say the decision to make the budget cut to the newspaper has no relation to the investigation on Professor Schrader, who was accused of trying to kiss “Jane” and touching her inappropriately. However, it seems too good to be true to say this is a “coincidence.”
The question now is, when will it happen to us? To other student papers? You don’t change a paper by cutting its budget; instead, you comment on a paper by writing a letter to the editor. Many people may not realize this, but school newspapers are important and need appropriate funding. Free and open journalism is costly and time consuming, especially as student journalists. This has been stated way too often in the last few months, but we, as student press, are not here to be publicists for our colleges, and we will continue to report even if it ends in our demise as student press.
