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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (May 1, 1985)
The Battalion/Page 5 News 'Ct iv S. Casper n end. look x it." i of April, Kl arts and clean coi as well as im ool childra top said wii t have ha iring the king on Sins to have Sw ro to church! s fate will btj of undecid D-Belton, rt of total re| about a third ton«l a third unething omething m (continued from page 1) ? Kirsten Dietz, assistant city editor. Bays, “(Work on the newspaper) [ doesn’t have set hours. It’s tough to ftalance a personal relationship. It Bakes someone really special to be ||ible to understand it and put up with it.” One question bothers most stu dent-reporters. | “You always wonder how many plactually read the paper,” Dietz says. I The Battalion has a 23,000 circu lation, ranking it in the top 10 for collegiate newpapers in the nation. I Don Johnson, student publica tions coordinator, says The Battalion has a budget just under $ 1 million a wear. I “It (the money) all comes from ad- Hvertising,” Johnson says, adding that only 5 percent of the newspaper’s Uxidget is supplied by student service ees. With so much money invested in The Battalion, the businesses of [Bryan-College Station expect to be |n the news occasionally, Johnson ays. If The Battalion prints a feature tory on a worker in a pizza restau- ant, “every pizza place will com- ng over,. ■p| a j n because that guy got free pub- s like "ssBicity,” Johnson adds, know how™ j-[ e sa y S advertisers consider The [Battalion a more credible newspaper cause it is technically not a free ublication. It has a circulation barge of $ 1 per student — or about 35,000 to $37,000 per year — taken rom student service fees each year. To qualify for this portion of stu- lent service fees, The Battalion must win the stamp of approval from the Finance Committee of Stu- ; dent Government. Johnson says a dollar a year per student amounts to less than a penny per paper. \ David Alders, former student ^ ' body president, says: “In an organization so concerned with a student institution (Student Government) being held account able to their constituency, it seems to me (the newspaper’s criticism of Stu- jdent Government) is pretty hypo- Icritical. Maybe (The Battalion writ ers) ought to hold a magnifying glass rents argi® [ U p to themselves.” 1 advocates,*; Kevin Brannon, Political Forum o weekendt '{chairman, says: fi]“I think The Batt recently has gotten iinto almost a personal vendetta gainst Student Government.” Alders says more attentive advis- [ing is needed by members of the communications department to solve the problems of irresponsibil ity. But Johnson, who is also an asso- Jciate professor of journalism, says First Amendment constitutional rights state that student publications cannot be touched by administra tors. He added that some A&M offi cials have had to be reminded of the First Amendment over the years. The courts, however, have not forgotten and have enforced the First Amendment in several cases. The 1972 decision by the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals of Fujishima vs. the Board of Educa tion ruled that prior review of a pub lic institution’s student newspaper was unconstitutional. In Bazaar vs. Fortune in 1973, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court ruled that speech, which might provoke antag- jonistic responses from a majority of people, could not be hindered in any iway. In defense of The Battalion, the paper’s informal adviser, Bob Rog ers, told staff writers: “Fact of the matter is, you guys prob ably get more advice and take more advice than people who have quote: ‘advisers.’ ” Rogers praised Jerry Oslin, the re porter who covered Student Gov ernment this semester. “Oslin, I think you deserve a medal on this series on Student Gov ernment,” he says. “The criticisms that I’ve heard about what you did are without merit.” The only student newspaper in Texas that leads The Battalion in circulation, The Daily Texan at the [University of Texas, also has been jthrough some rough times with stu dent government, Editor David Woodruff says. To improve student relations at A&M, some students have suggested holding a campus-wide election for the editor of The Battalion as UT does. But Woodruff says UT stu dents have lost interest in the elec tion. Candidates for editor of The Bat- Italion are interviewed by the Student Publications Board, composed of three A&:M students, three members of the faculty and one administrator. Professors on this year’s board were from the philosophy department, the English department, and the College of Geosciences. The admin istrator was Dr. Carolyn Adair, di rector of the Department of Student Activities. In 1975, The Battalion was placed under the umbrella of the Depart ment of Communications. Rogers says the newspaper was a part of the University News Service before the merger. “A very small clique of people” wrote for The Battalion at that time, Rogers says. When he was asked to be chairman of the Student Publica tions Board, Rogers says, he stip ulated that the newspaper be utilized by the communications department. Now, any student, regardless of his major, has the opportunity to work on The Battalion. The staff is chosen each semester by the editor. 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