🚀 go-pugleaf

The following message from the Ubyssey explains the situation
a bit better.


 From: Graham Cook <cook@unixg.ubc.ca>
 Subject: Student Government Shuts Down The Ubyssey
 Date: Tue, 8 Jun 1993 07:01:50 GMT

Press release

        The Alma Mater Society, the University of B.C. student council, has
voted to shut down the UBC student newspaper, The Ubyssey, after 74 years
of continuous publishing.
        The Society, at a June 2 special meeting, voted to delete all
references to the newspaper from its Code of Procedure, the organization's
constitution. 
        Current Ubyssey staffers are being allowed to use their editorial
office temporarily until the establishment of an AMS Publications Board,
which will directly control all general interest UBC student publications.
The Ubyssey can apply to exist again, but the Publications Board is not
obligated to ensure there is a student newspaper at UBC.
        The Publications Board will take over The Ubyssey's old office,
room 241K of the Student Union Building, and allocate the space to various
AMS publications as it sees fit. 
        The board will have total financial power over all publications,
the power to fire editors, ban students from writing for the newspaper,
control ad-to-copy ratio for publications, halt printing of a publication
for up to two weeks, allow publications to exist on a probationary basis
and shut down an AMS publication. If The Ubyssey is permitted to exist
again, it will have to work under these and other conditions.
        The board will have the following membership: three UBC alumni,
selected by the UBC Alumni Association and ratified by the AMS, three
members of the AMS Student Council, two UBC students at large and up to two
representatives from each publication. Decisions would be made by majority
or two thirds vote.
        The staff of the now former newspaper are actively pursuing ways to
attempt to restore a democratic, editorially free newspaper so that they
can continue UBC's  tradition of student journalism. They are worried that
the "solution" the student government has pursued may be used as a model at
other universities. Ironically, the Ubyssey would have turned 75 years old
this October.

        For further information, if you deem this newsworthy, the following
have been delegated to speak to the media:

Siobhan Roantree
(who would have been the Photo Co-ordinator for 1993-94)
(O) (604) 822-2301
 
Graham Cook 
(who would have been the News Co-ordinator for 1993-94)
(O) (604) 822-2301
(Internet e-mail) <cook@unixg.ubc.ca>

Handy facts about the late newspaper (R.I.P.?):

--Famous Ubyssey alumni: Pierre Berton, Allan Fotheringham, Peter
Worthington, Joe Schlesinger, Pat Carney, John "Chick" Turner.
--The Ubyssey published twice a week from September to April, once weekly
during July and early August, with a press run of 15,000
--Current staff are 90 per cent students of UBC. Ubyssey editors, until
now, were selected by the staff of the newspaper each year.

-- 
Nigel Allen, Toronto, Ontario, Canada  ae446@freenet.carleton.ca