UMR student paper faces $10,000 cut

Staff writers at the UM-Rolla student newspaper make $10 to $20 per week.

By Jaryd Wilson

Published Nov. 14, 2006

High staff salaries and advertising revenue were factors in the student government at UM-Rolla cutting 17 percent of the budget for the student paper at UMR, the Missouri Miner. The editor in chief blames the cuts on grammatical mistakes and controversial content.

"SAFB decided that the students of UMR should not provide further funding for the salaries of those employed by the Missouri Miner because of their own means of creating revenue for salaries through advertisements," said Jerel Bernasek, chairman of the Student Activities Finance Board.

The newspaper will receive $10,000 less from its student activities funding next year — about one-sixth of its budget. More than half of the paper's $56,000 budget comes from student activity fees.

UMR Student Council President Lauren Huchingson said the final vote, which was taken at last Tuesday's Student Council meeting, was 50-11.

"As a board, we discussed and determined that the Student Activities Finance Board's responsibility and authority lies strictly in the financial issues of The Missouri Miner," Bernasek said.

The board can't adjust funding because of news content, but it can recommend cuts based on staff salaries.

"We researched other student organizations at UMR as well as other student-run campus newspapers that employ students," Bernasek said. "We found that no student-run newspaper employee was being paid as much as a comparable employee of The Missouri Miner, and some of the student-run newspapers we researched were even completely staffed by volunteers."

Missouri Miner editor in chief Michele Martin said that without salaries, the Miner would not draw nearly as many writers.

"Our writers make less than $20 a week, maximum, per article," Martin said. "The average is about $10-$15 a week, and some of our writers only write because they know they are getting paid, and they want some extra cash."

Bernasek explained that the finance board's research for student newspaper staff salaries at similar universities was enough to recommend a budget cut.

"We looked at other UMR organizations and determined that the Missouri Miner has the highest employee salary payout," he said.

But Martin said the cuts had more to do with grammatical errors and the Miner's news coverage.

"Though we do feel grammatical errors are excessive and need to be remedied, $10,000 will not do that," Martin said.

Martin said the Miner has touched on issues that the university administration and student government didn't like.

"UMR is a very introverted, secretive campus, and we let those hard things out for students to see," Martin said.

Bernasek said that the recommendation was not based on the Miner's content.

"The Missouri Miner's funding was never cut due to the content of the articles published," Bernasek said.

Huchingson said before the student council vote last week, the cuts could still have been rejected.

"Student Council does not make these recommendations, but we go through a process every year to determine how much of the student activities fee should be given to each organization requesting funding," Huchingson said.

Martin said the Miner did not have enough notice about its funding being cut to adequately defend itself.

Bernasek said an open forum to announce recommended budget cuts for student organizations was held two weeks before the student council confirmed the cut. But Martin said there was no discussion of a possible cut to the Miner.

"That to us is not only poorly planned, but absolutely unacceptable for such a large decision," Martin said.

Bernasek said the finance board doesn't need to give notice to organizations facing cuts. He said he told Martin and the paper's business manager, Wendy Moore, two days before the Student Council voted to approve the $10,000 cut.

Martin said she knew a cut was coming on Sunday but didn't know how much until the day before it was made.

"We feel that had if we had time to explain our plans to make things better we would not have been cut, or at least not cut as bad," Martin said.