I am angry the ASUO cut funding for two of the only programs that I support funding with my student fees. In all honesty, I am ignorant in large part of ASUO and its workings, and so I depend on the three main campus papers to cover it. For it to seriously slash the Emerald’s funding and completely cut the Commentator’s budget is a serious misuse of power. I do not recall any community demand or vote for either and feel grossly misrepresented by a largely unrepresentative student government. I believe that an informed reader is one who has several options of news coverage. To limit my choices through these budget decisions demonstrates a large disconnect between the student senate and its constituents.
On a related note, when a news outlet becomes a part of a story itself, questions of bias inevitably arise. How can I depend that the non-editorial coverage of the ASUO is accurate as clearly the Emerald was involved in a conflict for funding with the PFC? Doesn’t this relationship of patron/client necessarily underlie Emerald’s perspective on the ASUO? While the response to this will likely be that the Emerald is only partially funded by the ASUO and that it is an independent newspaper that believes in factual reporting rather than sensationalized opinions, I still question this conflict of interest. It also further proves my point about the necessity in funding multiple news publications on campus as now I am even further hindered from reading factually based coverage and must make do with partial and biased editorials.
Susan Goodwin
Junior