Later reports indicate that the "defunding" if it can be called such, is far more nuanced, and is not scheduled for immediate implementation.
In fact, the WSA (Wesleyan Student Association) vote was not to implement the proposal, but to accept it, philosophically, and keep it open for further study.
Details of the decision are provided by the Student Activism blog which is devoted to students organizing for action on college campuses.
What remains true, is that, if fully adopted, the most the Argus would receive is in the neighborhood of $12,000, with a mandated reduced print run. In addition, student writers would be paid. What's more, additional publications would receive WSA funding. Current editors claim the new funding scheme would undercut the operation of the Argus because the current $30k is needed for production costs, and production staff costs not anticipated in the proposal.
Original post begins here:
According to Jezebel (I know, how can you begin even a jaded blogpost with that citation), Wesleyan's student government has defunded The Wesleyan Argus in response to a controversial opinion piece was published in the student newspaper. That opinion (op-ed) piece criticized the Black Live Matter movement, and became the object of student phillipics in the days following.
According to some reports, students have been "boycotting" the newspaper, and also removing stacks of the Argus as it is distributed on the campus.
"I did recover a large stack of papers from a recycling bin," Argus executive editor Gabe Rosenberg said on WNPR's Colin McEnroe show today (10/19).
The Argus, which has received annual funding of $30,000 will now receive $13,000 from the student government, and will compete with other campus publications for budget dollars.
Punishing a newspaper for editorializing. It's either childish or totalitarian I can't figure out which. I hope the Society of Professional Journalists sites the college for this.
ReplyDeletePunishing a newspaper A College News paper for publishing an article. What a childish thing to do. You are supposed to go to college to learn. That is a learning experience. Sure it is, publish only ideas that people will like don't publish any articles that are going to cause controversy. You should all be ashamed of yourselves for being cowards.
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