The UPEI SUN,Thursday,Maroh 29,1979,pagé 6 -

AUTONOMY: A

byAlayneMCGregor

by students, they argue,

of Canadian University Press they should control the

"Oomcil president loses $2000 in get-ridu—quidc scheme", scream the head-. lines in (me week's issue of a student paper.

'I'he next week: Well, there aren't any headlines next week because the president has shut den the paper.

'me above case is fictional, but it's also typical of many conflicts that have existed between student papers and student councils for many years. And it's the reason why many student papers want to reassess their relation- ships to student councils and to students.

The cathcword is autonomy particularly fiscal autonomy, and it's some- thing more and more papers have been going for in the past few years. Whether it's by a per- student levy delivered through the administration,

or a cmtract negotiated each year with the student union) papers are trying to distance themselves from their student govem— ment.

But why? Aren't student papers and student governments both part of the student movement? Aren't they both supposed to serve the students?

WHY . AUTONOMY?

Many student councils use the argument that, because they are the elected representatives of students, they have a respcnisibility to the students to direct the papers "in the best interest-.5 of the students".

Since tr..l_y they are responsible to and elected

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paper's editorial policy and cmtent. But as a paper prepared by last year's CUP national executive points out, "the problem lies in the conflict of interest councils have."

The problem occurs, because 1 in most cases. student councils are both the main financial and main news source of student papers. large sections of student papers are usually devoted to their activities (or lack of activity) , and their intemal squabbles and external pronounce— ments.

But that doesn't mean the student governments will always like the coverage, because papers also cover what they are doing wrong.

As Chris Jull of the mtaricn, one of the few , fully—autonomous student papers, points out: “If it is the newspaper's responsibility to report the activities of its student government, it follows that it is its responsibility ":0 work to become independent enough to do that in a complete manner. In other words, if the council is falling flat on its face, the paper should say so."

While student governments have constitutional or financial control over papers, there will always be trouble with inter— ference. If 'power wing nuts‘ are messing up council business, there is

‘ little reason to suspect

they will stand by while

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the paper reports their transgressions."

In most cases, student unions, as ptblishers, control student papers ' budgets, and usually ratify papers' choices for editors. With this ' power, if they don't like

I a paper's coverage,

they can interfere in its operations.

'Ihis interference, last year's executive explained "may range from comments about the editorial position on certain items around the time of . budget approval to look— ing the staff out of its offices over political differences." .

(11 several papers this year, continued personal differences have led to extended, months—long fights over papers '_ budgets, editorial salarie salaries, and editorial content. In extreme

_ cases, councils have ‘ grilled editors at

meetings, and, in some cases, fired or tried to fire them for alleged

’ [130]? 116073 coverage or

financial incompetence .

FINANCIAL 7 RESPONSIBILITY

However, it's not only the question of editorial freedom that has caused problems between student councils and papers. Papers' fiscal responsi— bility is a problem, too.

And the lack of resp- V onsibility can often be traced back to papers‘ lack of autonomy. Because the student government's accounting department handles their

books, they don't know the

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state of their own

finances. And that . lead to trouble. . ..

A classic case is the attatpted- closing of the Dalhousie Gazette last spring. Ps then-editor ‘ Val Mansour explains:

"There was a $2000 printing bill from the year before whidm was carried over in our budget, so it looked like we were $2000 over, though, in fact, we had printed less pages than last year. Our ad manager wasn't collecting ad revenue faSt enough, so the money in the account was lcw.'I -

With this lack of ' revenue, the Dalhousie student union told the Gazette it couldn't 7 publish its last two scheduled issues.~ Mansour: . "They wouldn't even listen ' to reason that we could print two small issues and break even if we wanted to. They told us we couldn't publish our last’cwo ‘ issues, and they told our printers not to print them".-

"We told them, 'Phooey I 1 cm ycu' . 'Ihen we put out / two iSSues on our own, and turned a profit."

But the whole dispute was unnecessary, Mansour said. "It all could have been avoided if we had had better knowledge of our finances. The ultimate

’ solution is to be separate

from your student council and have your business manager responsible to your staff — to keep them aware of what's going on."

Fiscal autonomy also

ensures papers keep their

funding, points out Peak

. ' '