Page 6 Technician September 8, 1975
HOW 'BOOT US? THE PAPER
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"Were it left to me to decide wlrctlwr we should have a jovernment witnout
newspapers, or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate a moment to
prefer the latter." -Thomas Jellerson
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The Daily Tar Heel, the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill's student
newspaper, has enjoyed 83 years of
editorial freedom, as its masthead
proudly announces.
83 years, that is, until today.
The Tar Heel, one of the nation's
oldest collegiate newspapers, has also
traditionally been one of its best. In the
past five years, the Technician has risen
quickly to national prominence, and has
now established itself among the nation s
leading collegiate journals. The result of
this, in recent years, has been hot
competition between the Tar Heel and
the Technician for both regional and
national awards, with both papers
gathering their share of honors.
But today there is no Tar Heel, and
the reason why calls for setting aside
any pettiness involved in the journalistic
rivalry.
The Tar Heel is in financial trouble.
Or is it?
No, the DTK's problems are, m
reality, political, not financial. And the
difficulties being faced by the Tar Heel
stem from a disease that has swept
student governments virtually all across
the nation creative impotence.
To lay the cards on the table, it seems
that Carolina's student government, like
that of State and countless other
universities, just can't come up with
anything to do with itself. So in lieu of
doing something creative, they have
chosen to take the route of doing
something destructive.
And in the case of universities such as
Carolina, where student government has
a degree of financial control over the
campus newspaper, said publication has
become the target of those destructive
tendencies.
At Carolina, Student Body Treasurer
Mike O'Neal, a longtime campus politico,
took it upon himself, with subsequent
UoASnrr from tViP Carolina Campus
Governing Council, to exercise control
over the Tar Heel's $29,000 student fee
appropriation. By refusing to release
any more than $6,000 of the previously
allocated $29,000 O'Neal made it possible
for the Tar Heel to meet a Carolina
Student Government Treasury law that
requires an organization to have the
cash on hand before entering into
business transactions, which, in the case
of the Tar Heel's day to day operation,
means that they must have the cash in
the bank to cover expenses before they
can print the next day's paper.
The result of all this is that the Tar
Heel has an artificial financial crisis,
which stems from O'Neal and company's
blatant ignorance of the concept of
accounts receivable.
The Tar Heel, like the Technician, has
encountered tremendous printing costs
in the first two weeks of publication due
to the increased number of pages in the
semester opening papers. But also like
the Technician, the Tar Heel has sold
more than enough advertising in those
issues to cover the cost of printing them.
However, you can't sell advertising on
a cash in advance basis. The ad has to be
sold, run in the paper, and sent as a
"tear sheet" to the advertiser along with
the invoice, which allows 30 days for
submission of payment.
So for the Tar Heel to meet its
statutory obligation to have the cash on
hand in advance to cover printing costs
for the first two weeks' papers, it would
of necessity have to have at least half of
its previously allocated $29,000 in
student funds in a lump sum at the
beginning of the academic year.
But O'Neal and his friends either can't
or more probably won't, see the
situation in the light of reality.
Instead, in what is in all likelihood an
attempt to set themselves up as "The
Power," the UNC Student Body
Treasurer and his student government
friends have realized that they have the
clout to play "hot shot" and are now
exercising that dubious perogative.
What it comes down to is this: due to
technicalities in the Carolina student
hnAv statutes, one DomDous ass has
control over $29,000 of the Tar Heel
VmHo-Pt which totals well over $200,000,
and with control of that small fraction of
the total budget, can shut down the
pntirp nneration.
And what is incredible is that he did
it.
Here at State, publications operate
under the jurisdiction of a student board
known as the Publications Authority,
which is totally removed from student
government intervention. Although it
has its faults, what has happened to the
Tar Heel clearly demonstrates that the
system we have here is superior to one
with anv sort of student government
control over the newspaper woven into
it.
It is our hope that the students of
Carolina will demand an end to such
control over the freedom of the Tar
Heel. Its tradition of quality is
somethiner Carolina students can
rightfully take pride in. The asinine
actions of the Carolina student
government are, conversely, something
of which Carolina students should be
ashamed, and more importantly,
something they should put a stop to at
once.
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In a few weeks the three
television networks will once again
prove H. L. Mencken's thesis that
nobody has gone broke by
underestimating the intelligence of
the public. .
I have some information on the
upcoming new programs which I'll
pass on without further comment.
The most innovative program of
the season was conceived in
response to soaring TV production
costs. ABC needed an inexpensive
yet popular program. The result is
the ABC HcUf-an-Ounce Variety
Hour, which will be aired seven
nights a week.
The show is simple. Host Ralph
Rudell starts by dipping into his
Half-Ounce of Entertainment, that
is, his baggie full of Venezuelen
Orange, then rolling a few numbers
and getting extremely stoned.
That's the first half hour. In the
itsyn and other Soviet writers is
the basis for My Three Defectors.
Telly Savalas stars as Dmitri
Talkyorhedov, a Ukrainian novelist
imprisoned in the Lubyanka. As a
CBS release notes, "the revisionist
antics of Dmitri and his cellmates
will amuse viewers week after
week."
My Three Defectors is part of a
cultural exchange effort, f oviet TV
will carry the show, and CBS will
air a Russian comedy, Novarya
Blztkov. (In English: Train Stations
Lizard.)
The first of President Ford's new
Straight Talk shows will debut in
September. The President's first
topic is to be "Climbing Stairs."
The season's ethnic humor will be
provided by EUis Island, a comedy
about immigration officials in the
1890's. Join the fun as Jim Nabors
and his assistants confuse and
British comedy troupe in a series of
educational demonstrations of
airborne pest control techniques.
Many people doubted that the
Thirty Years War was a suitable
subject for family comedy; Ferdi
nand and Gus proves that they
were right.
Several new shows have a
Bicentennial theme, among them
The Benedict Arnold Comedy Hour
and Franklin and Sons. The
producers of MASH offer a
lighthearted view of the loyalists
called T0RY, filmed on location
in Nova Scotia.
The titles of the remaining new
shows should be sufficient: My
Mother The Unindicted Co
conspirator, Colson's Christvins,
The Good Soldier Calley, EueU
Gibbon's Eat Your Radio, and a
perennial favorite, Dragnat 198b.
second half of the show, Ralph will
settle down in front of his TV set
and watch old reruns like Andy
Griffith or McHales Navy, as will
the viewers. In this way, half of the
show has already been done.
Another unusual ABC offering is
The Rite of Spring, which a press
release describes as "a situation
comedy based on Stravinsky's
well-known orchestral piece of the
same name."
NBC will try to cash in on the
nostalgia wave with a live program
called Remember Yesterday? It will
consist of hit songs, idiomatic
expressions and fads that were
popular on the day before air time.
CBS is countering with an even
more recent nostalgia show called
Ten Minutes Ago.
The plight of Aleksandr Sozhen-
insult the huddled masses arriving
at our shores. A quick glance at the
episode titles is all that is needed:
"Harry and the Latvian," "Any
body Here Speak Hindustani?" and
"Too Many Serbians."
ABC plans to introduce a new
concept in variety programming.
Its Tuesday schedule will include
the Rudolph Lichtenstein Show,
Rudolph Lichtenstein is an
accountant from East Orange, New
Jersey; his premiere segment
includes performances by several
East Orange residents on spoons,
washboards, and trancepts, often in
key. Much of this folksy
entertainment hour is spent picking
up missed cues and adjusting
camera angles.
Monty Python's Crop-Dusting
Almanac features the six-man
Kevin Fisher Editor
Editorial
Jim Pomeranz Associate Editor
Howard Barnett Assistant Editor
Jimmy Carroll Sports Editor
Ted Simons Entertainment Editor
Ginger Andrews Assistant News Editor
Paul Kearns Photo Editor
Matthew Hale, Jay Purvis Cartoonists
Production
Teresa Brown Production Manager
Production Staff
Ricky Childrey John Garrison Cheryl Estes
Jean Jackson Jeni Murray Sandy Lock
Larry Robinson Sally Williamson Nancy Williams
Advertising
Derms Vick. Advertising Manager
Steve Key, Barret Wilson Ad Design
Derek White, Pete Peters, Rick Enels . . . .Salesmen
David Martin Circulation Manager
Joel Martin Circulation Assistant