Buying Ink By The Barrel
As Homer once put it: “OK, brain. You don’t like me and I don’t like you. Let’s just get through this so I can get back to killing you with beer.” For this week, at least, the ODE and the OC are liable to be completely simpatico. First salvo here.
Your student leaders are currently abusing their authority over incidental fees in order to settle personal scores with campus journalists — and dismantle your freedom of speech — by simultaneously trying to de-fund the two most visible student publications on campus: the Oregon Commentator and the Oregon Daily Emerald.
Testify. This is also a depressing read.
[Former Senator Sol] Hart said he was also concerned with a lack of viewpoint neutrality in the student government. He said PFC members’ attempt to defund the Oregon Commentator in December unsettled him.
“That bothers me, where it became clear that the PFC was making a decision on mission statements when they didn’t really understand the breadth of the reach or review they can engage in,” he said.
And they still don’t; but what’s new there? If the ODE can come within one vote of being completely defunded, it’s amateur hour on a hitherto unseen scale.
So apparently being offensive only for your ineptitude is okay.
In other news: Voice receives funding increase.
I would almost hope there IS a conspiracy, because if there’s NOT, then that just means ASUO is incredibly stupid. I can’t fathom how anybody could use the kind of logic PFC uses to set budgets and not have an agenda — some sort of ulterior justification for using such ridiculous reasoning as counting how many DAILY papers are left over in a few boxes over the course of TWO DAYS and determining from that number how many students read said paper ALL YEAR. It was Quiroz, I think, who used that argument, and he’s a Math major for Christ’s sake. You can’t tell me a Math major could seriously accept that kind of formula without some abject motive. I hear the math department at UO is quite good.
The good news is ASUO isn’t nearly as clever and powerful as it contends to be. I’m confident common sense and, perhaps even the free press, will prevail in the end.
There’s no conspiracy. There’s no ASUO grudge against the free press (unless it’s something PFC decided on their own.)
If there was some grudge going on, we could’ve evicted you people by now, too.
No, trust me, there’s no plan here. That’s really the best part of the Emerald article: seeing a conspiracy where there is, in fact…
Well. You speculate. It’s possible some of my erstwhile colleagues reading, and I’d prefer not to offend anyone.
Yarg. This is so silly. I escaped from Wyoming to get away from closed-minded totalitarian folk. Maybe next year Philly will be a sane middle ground.
Peace,
Chris