Newspapers / The Guilfordian (Greensboro, N.C.) / April 13, 1970, edition 1 / Page 4
Part of The Guilfordian (Greensboro, N.C.) / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
Page 4 Letters To The Guilfordian Editor Funds Needed For Responsible Freedom Of Press Quality Newspaper Dear Editor, The process of staffing, ed iting and publishing a college demands an enor mous sacrifice of time and effort on the part of the involved students. It isn't surprising that few students are interested in adding this burden to their reg ular load of classes and activities; for some years past, in fact, it has been almost impossible to persuade anyone to accept the editorship of THE GUIL FORDIAN the predictable result being a mediocre paper, often embarrassingly so, with an errat ic record of publication. The surprising thing is that in spite of student apathy and dis interest, THE GUILFORDIAN is now a regular publication of superior quality and craftsman ship. The credit for this steady improvement over the last two years must go to the editors and staff of THE GUII FORDIAN who deserve more support and gratitude from the students and faculty of Guilford than they are presently getting. Guilford: Dear Editor: I have been asked by Craig Chapman, editor of our campus newspaper, THE GUILFOR DIAN, to present my views and justify my actions on the issue of the newspaper strike. Before I do this, however, I should like to state that al though I very seldom agree with the choice of articles included in THE GUILFORDIAN or their content, 1 do realize that this year's staff of THE GUILFOR DIAN has uplifted the quality of the paper from a journalistic point of view so that it now !,as the professional qualities that one would expect from a college newspaper. I find no fault here. The March 23 meeting of Student Legislature was devoted almost entirely to discussion and debate on next year's budget. When THE GUILFORDIAN's budget was presented, the Legis lature was informed that $1,509 was to be used for remunerative purposes. I was one of the majority of legislators who voted to giveTHE GUILFORDIAN all of the money they requested with the single exception of those funds to be used to provide salaries for executive officers. Monetary Reimbursements I feel that the staff of THE GUILFORDIAN deserves to be reimbursed monetarily for the amount of work they put into publishing each issue of the paper. I also feel, however, that the staff of the QUAKER, the executive board of the College Union, and the executive boards of the various branches of Stu dent Government deserve some sort of pay for their time. In defense of salaries for officers of student organizations, I could cite numerous large Universities who pay all of these officers and others in addition. Guilford is not a large school, though. For budget purposes we Gratitude is pleasant, of course, but solid financial sup port is a necessity. Staff salaries are the rule today for college journalists, and it seems naive to hope that we can continue to staff a quality newspaper, with the labor and skill involved, while offering little or no com pensation. The question of staff salaries, however, is overshadowed at the moment by the larger issue of financial support of THE GUIL FORDIAN by the Student Legis lature. It is difficult to believe that any argument should be needed against permitting a legis lature to determine what news and opinions a student is allowed to hear. Yet when a student legis lature votes to withold funds unless the college newspaper follows a prescribed format, it is obviously attempting to ex cercise the power of censorship and to control the expression of opinion. There is no surer way to destroy a newspaper, as well as the climate of freedom on a campus. JAN COX SPEAS Too Small To Pay can count on only nine hundred and fifty students. At this point, in order to just barely cover the budget which was passed at the March 23 meeting, the Student Activities Fee will have to be raised thirteen dollars next year to a total of fifty-eight dollars. To operate properly, the fee should be sixty dollars. This will be decided tonight. Gross Injustice To pay The GUILFORDIAN staff and not pay others who devote large amounts of time in service to the school and its students would be a gross injus tice. To pay all of those who deserve money would raise the Student Activities Fee still higher until it would become prohibitive. Therefore, since we cannot afford to pay all officers of organizations, I voted not to pay any at all. The honor, prestige, experience, and self-satisfaction of the position itself are all that Guilford can offer its office holders. If these be not suffi cient, then let the individuals who so believe not run for of fice, but rather to take positions whereby they can be paid for their services. Misuse Of Authority The staff of THE GUILFOR DIAN, however, in an effort to present their views and to show their indignation after being turned down in their bid for recompense, published issue number 23 of THE GUILFOR DIAN on April 6. In this issue, which consisted of a picture, an announcement, and two articles concerning the .fact that THE GUILFORDIAN staff was on strike, the staff announced that they would print only news con cerning their strike in the forth coming issues of their newspaper I contend that this consti tutes a misuse of authority and student funds. If the staff of The GUILFORDIAN felt that they THE GUILFORDIAN Dear Editor, The Guilford College Pub lications Board is made up of students, faculty members, and administrators of varying polit ical persuasions but all conserv ative in our wish to see operative on our campus the American tradition of a free press. In the process of electing an editor, we look for applicants who are not only knowledgeable in the technical aspects o f - '- ning a paper, but who ai. derstand and respect the resp 1- sibility which is an integral part of all true freedom. An editor is free to choose what will appear in the columns of his paper—but he is re sponsible for reflecting the col lege community as it is, not as it should be, nor as some like to have it seem. Judge Fairly An editor is free to comment editorially on anything reported in the news columns of his paper-but he is responsible for judging each issue using reason and logic rather than emotion and prejudice. Editors are human and col lege editors are relatively inex could not work for the intrinsic values to be gained from their work, needed the added stimulus of money, and wanted to strike, then I believe them to be within their rights. When the staff took office, they accepted the responsibility of publishing Guilford College's newspaper, THE GUILFOR DIAN. If that staff could justify to themselves the shirking of that responsibility for the pur pose of a cause of this nature then they could have gone on strike. Campus Oriented But a strike is an act of quitting work, and the staff of THE GUILFORD IAN did not quit; they published. They pub lished with the authority given them by the student body to publish a compus newspaper. But the only party who bene fitted from Issue 23 was the staff of THE GUILFORDIAN itself. This usurpation of authority and expenditure of student body money to further the private cause of the staff of The GUIL FORDIAN constituted the rea sons for my sponsoring the bill in the last legislature meeting which suspended all funds to The GUILFORDIAN unless they publish a normal edition of the newspaper. This justification of views is written to be included in such an edition. This bill constitutes in no way a move to censor THE GUILFORDIAN or to punish it for going "on strike." If this is published then the bill will have served its purpose ; to keep THE GUILFORDIAN a campus news paper, reporting news which will benefit the campus as a whole and not just the small body of hardworking staff members who publish it. DALE MANDEL perienced. Their excercise of freedom is predictably imper fect, and they are often under legitimate attack. They are often attacked less defensibly for sup porting an unpopular cause or reporting an incident which re flects no credit on those in volved. Attack, justified or unjust ified, is part of an editor's life, but if the college press is to be free, the editor must be respon sible to the whole college com munity, not to special segments of it, or special interest groups. He may not be dictated to by anyone, be it student, faculty member, or administration. The Publications Board must try each year to choose as editor the student applicant it deems most nearly qualified for a dif ficult and demanding job, but once the choice is made, the Board serves the editor in an advisory capacity only, and serves the cause of editorial freedom in receiving such criti- Guilfordian Charged With Misuse Dear Editor, The way in which The GUIL FORDIAN thus far has fought for wages for staff members does not surprise me, although it is a disappointment. For a paper which takes extremely intense ethical stands about almost any thing (even appearing to contra dict itself from time to time in its effort to rigidly defend a cause), it is rather ironic that when an issue arises in which the paper is directly involved, ethics go out the window, inexcusable irresponsibility comes in. The legitimacy of your goal is not the question. Whether or not you need or should have wages is, for the moment at least, irrelevant. It is your right, fur thermore, to plead your case with the public and wherever else you wish, and it is your right to strike to gain what you believe to be necessary. How ever, the means used thus far, the means promised in the last issue of The GUILFORDIAN, and the means the Editor stated at the last Legislature meeting which would be used, are un ethical, illegitimate, and perhaps unconstitutional. A strike is a statement of refusal to work. You are not striking. Instead, you are taking the money entrusted to your care for a specific purpose (i.e., to publish news of all kinds, editorials, sports, letters, and miscellaneous articles), and using this money soley and exclusively for the purpose of furthering your own cause. By continuing to publish, but refusing to pub lish news, articles, etc., you are misusing funds. You stated in print that only news pertaining directly to the strike would be printed. This is censorship of news by a paper purportedly adamantly opposed to censorship. You stated in print, and therefore in public, that only April 13,1970 cism of the newspaper, its editor, and his policies as may not be handled to the satisfaction of the critic in the columns reserved for letters to the editor. CARTER DELAFIELD Chairman, Guilford College Publications Board .Legislature Cuts (Continued From Page 1) out becoming personal. He then went on to cite Paige Via and Larry Elworth as examples of legislature members who "have disagreed with me all year but who have never become person al." Chapman also said that he hoped the controversy over the strike could be turned into a learning experience and invited students and faculty members to write letters to the editor ex pressing their opinions on the question of GUILFORDIAN salaries as well as the idea of raising the student activity fee to provide money for higher quality college programs. strike material would be printed, yet later contradicted yourself to say that the subsequent issue would consist soley of letters to the Editor. This was not made public, and many people are under the impression that you will not print their letters. This changing of procedure in midstream is already highly questionable, but when com pounded by a further statement that the staff would continue to change its tactics at will, as it saw fit, regardless of others and regardless of its own printed statements, The GUIL FORDIAN has finally broken all trust. You should realize that the publication you edit is supposed to be a newspaper in the usual sense of the word. That is your job. The money, time, and re sources provided for the pub lishing of a newspaper should not be used for private cam paigns. The "Board of Directors," as it were, of The GUILFORDIAN is the membership of the Stu dent Legislature. It has, in my opinion, acted wisely and fairly. It did not try to prevent you from excercising your right to strike, nor to prevent you from continuing to publish your news paper, even recognizing the slant the news would inevitably take. Instead, it simply reaffirmed that The GUILFORDIAN is to be a certain kind of publication, and will receive support and funds as long as it remains that kind of publication. If, however, you continue to use unethical means toward an end not even as yet publicly justified or explained, you will lose that support and those funds. The choice of course, is yours, but a pragmatic person would certainly have very little difficulty making that choice in another direction. RUSTY DAVENPORT
The Guilfordian (Greensboro, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
April 13, 1970, edition 1
4
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75