Curators deny Rolla newspaper's request
Published Feb. 23, 2007
A suit filed against the Board of Curators won't end the controversy for UM-Rolla's student publication, The Missouri Miner.
The Board of Curators denied the paper's request, which asked for reimbursement of funds. Ultimately, the board cut more than one-third of the paper's budget, which totaled more than $12,000.
UM system spokesman Scott Charton declined to comment about the issue due to legal implications.
There was a public forum held in November in which students were given the opportunity to address their concerns with the content of The Missouri Miner.
Michele Martin, former editor in chief of The Missouri Miner, said the newspaper is in the process of pursuing a lawsuit of some sort but declined to comment any further about the incident.
For now, members of The Missouri Miner have to pursue plans for the next academic year.
"Right now, we have to plan for not having that money next year, and that's the way we're operating right now," said Chris Stryker, editor in chief of The Missouri Miner. "So we've already started making cutbacks where we could."
The cutbacks include cutting down the number of pages the paper publishes each issue. They also include the loss of spot color on the front page.
"By cutting down on page count, an offshoot of that is that we've had to cut down on stories," Stryker said.
Stryker said some of the student body's concerns included problems with proofreading, soliciting and interpreting feedback and holding writers at a higher level of accountability. He said the cuts would make it harder to correct these problems.
"They were never entirely clear about that," Stryker said. "It seemed to me like they wanted to see it plastered all over saying 'This person screwed up.'"
Stryker said one of the reasons for the cut in funding, ultimately, was improper proofreading.
"I'll admit, we had some issues, but we were trying with the staff that we had at the time," Stryker said.
Turnover in staff members for The Missouri Miner has always been common, and staff members have not changed due to the budget cuts.
"It hasn't yet changed the number of members on our staff," Stryker said. "We have lost some members, but it has not had a lot to do with that. We have a fairly high turnover rate of writers anyway. During the course of the year, we employ between 60 and 80 people, and at any given time, only 40 to 50 work for us."
Martin and Stryker met with Deborah Robinson, vice chancellor for student services, who presented a list of qualities that the student council and other organizations that fund The Missouri Miner want to see in the paper, Martin said.
During this meeting, the staff was told that if it fulfilled some of those things, it would get its money back.
"It became apparent that what they were doing was just not fair," Martin said. "It felt like we were operating with a gun to our head. We said that's just not right, and are having to proceed with a lawsuit."
Another fundamental cut made in The Missouri Miner's budget was funding to go to media training and press conventions near UMR, Martin said.
"One of the big ways we were cut, and one of the results of that, is that we can't go train," Martin said. "Meanwhile, the students are asking for us to produce a better paper. We're at an engineering school with limited resources, and it's very different to be better while they're trying to take away more funding."