🚀 go-pugleaf

[I am quoting the whole article from Ryan McCuaig, since I think it is
 important and I'm not sure if it was cross-posted to bc.general.
 Please make sure your postings are cross-posted to bc.general and
 other newsgroups, otherwise stale fire and brimstone will pour from
 the SFU hill.  :-) ]

In article <dday.739906823@unixg.ubc.ca> dday@unixg.ubc.ca (Ryan G McCuaig) writes:
>Nice to see that everyone's staying rational.
>
>Perhaps I didn't express everything succinctly enough in my last post.
>To my thinking, and that of the other AMS Councillors, there is no
>censorship going on here. The whole point of the Publications Board is
>to move control of the Ubyssey into a smaller, less adversarial
>environment.

And a less political environment.  It is highly inappropriate for a
political body such as Student Council to be directly overseeing a
student paper, as it has been doing.  If any body should be overseeing
(not controlling) any media outlet, it should a non-political body.

>            I for one am _damned_ tired of being called every name
>out of Orwell's _1984_ every time we respond to student and community
>demand that something be done about _The Ubyssey_. How the hell would
>you feel? You do nothing, people say you're abusing their student
>fees. You do something, all of a sudden you're one of the Ministry of
>Truth's censors (witness the current thread).
>
>The Publications Board is widely endorsed amongst AMS Councillors
>because we are tired of being accused of censorship every time we had
>to exert our responsibility in getting _The Ubyssey_'s Birkenstocks
>out of their mouths.
>
>Thus, the Publications Board (which _will_ have Ubyssey staffers on it
>as voting members, much to Mr. Froese's dismay) will deal with any
>problems that arise. I do agree with Mr. Froese in that, if they want
>complete editorial freedom, they go completely independent. I was one
>of the founders of the Campus Times, and we learned very quickly to
>exert editorial responsibility.
>
>Fundamentally, I think everyone has a conflicting idea of what
>definition we're assigning to the term "censorship". The Pub Board is
>not going to be a little enclave with Jiffy Markers, cutting a word
>here and a word there. It's taking over control of the AMS' financial
>contribution (a power which heretofore was held by one person, the
>Director of Finance), and a few other things (I'm not being evasive. I
>just don't remember all the niggly little details right now. I'll look
>them up if anyone wants). As far as editorial control goes, the Pub
>Board has very little. It's true that the Pub Board can take the
>"carrot-and-stick" approach, but now _The Ubyssey_ itself has some
>control over whether or not that happens.

Perhaps some diagrams might help.  The change being made by the
Council is this:

        Student Council                    Student Council
               |                                 |
    Ubyssey editorial board   ----->     Publications Board
        and collective                           |_____________
                                                 |             |
                               Ubyssey editorial board    Other papers
                                    and collective          (eg. Pow)

[Pow is an offshoot from the Ubyssey (covering minority issues) that
 wants to separate.]

Some notes:
  - The Publications Board has almost NO say in editorial policies of
    the papers it oversees.  It is somewhat akin to the CRTC, which
    oversees all Canadian TV and radio media.  Each paper will
    determine its own editorial policies and content.
  - The Board is a non-political body.
  - Papers will now receive funding from the Board instead of from the
    Council.
  - Council can no longer withdraw funding from the Ubyssey alone.  In
    order to withdraw funding, it would have to do so from the Board,
    thereby killing all the other papers with the Ubyssey.
  - Unlike Council, the Board has representatives from the papers.
  - Council has always had the awful powers that the Ubyssey press
    release says the Board will have.  I expect that if the Board were
    to exercise those powers, an uproar will occur just as one would
    if Council were to exercise those powers.

>Finally, I'd like to know why everyone is bitching now. _All_ of the
>publications mentioned in this thread publicized the May 19 special
>meeting of Council (including _The 432_). The meeting was publicized
>for two months. Submissions were called for, etc. None came. So
>forgive me for seeing this whole thing as all talk, no action.

Just to expand on this (sorry Ryan), five options were put before
Student Council at that meeting:
  1. Adopt the Ubyssey's constitution (since it has been running
     without one for the past ten years),
  2. Not to publish a paper at all, and rely on the market,
  3. Give the Ubyssey total independence, and set up a contractual
     relationship between it and the AMS,
  4. Have Council develop a constitution and appoint the editors, and
  5. Create a Publications Board.

The AMS Executive Officers asked Council to choose option #5.  The
Ubyssey collective asked Council to choose option #1.  Nobody argued
for options #2, #3 and #4.  Option #5 was chosen for further
consideration after five hours of presentations, questions and debate.
Unusually, the Ubyssey has in the past argued for autonomy (ie. #3); I
wonder why they didn't push for it, considering that they had two
months to prepare for the meeting.

Committee meetings (announced at the meeting on May 19) were held on
May 25, 26, 27 and 28.  At each meeting, there were one or two people
representing the Ubyssey collective.  A number of changes proposed by
them were accepted by the committee.  Then the Council formally
adopted the new Publications Board on June 2 with only one dissenting
vote.

Therefore any charges that the Council acted undemocratically, without
consulting anybody, without due process, and/or ignored the Ubyssey's
supposed desire to become autonomous are without foundation.

Here is an interesting note.  The Ubyssey in their press release wrote

   "The Alma Mater Society, the University of B.C. student council,
    has voted to shut down the UBC student newspaper, The Ubyssey, ...

    Current Ubyssey staffers are being allowed to use their editorial
    office temporarily until the establishment of an AMS Publications
    Board, ...

    ... Ironically, the Ubyssey would have turned 75 years old this
    October."

However, the Ubyssey for its first 50 years operated under a similar
publications board.

>You can all flame each other to death (or me, I expect), but this
>colossal waste of bandwidth does not change one simple fact: I don't
>recall hearing _any_ of you make constructive suggestions to Council
>when we offered you the opportunity.
>
>Time to get up from the keyboards, boys.
>
>Ryan McCuaig
>Dir of Publications
>Science Undergrad Society of UBC

==================

Orvin Lau, Student Member of the Board of Governors
The University of British Columbia

c/o Alma Mater Society                    Tel:  (604) 822-6101
Student Union Building  (Room 262)        Fax:  (604) 822-9019
6138 Student Union Building Boulevard     Internet: olau@unixg.ubc.ca
Vancouver, B.C.   V6T 1Z1

NB.  All opinions expressed above are my own, despite the fact that I
     am another member of the AMS Student Council.
     cat flames >/dev/null