On Oct. 25, the University College Literary and Athletic Society withheld The Gargoyle’s access to its student levy fund after rejecting the student newspaper’s proposed budget. The UC Lit did this out of concern that too much of the budget was allocated to food, alcohol, and parties. On his blog, UC Lit speaker Andrew Rusk says The Gargoyle spends 20 per cent on food, drinks, alcohol, and parties, compared to the two to three per cent at The Varsity, 6.5 per cent at The Mike, and 10 per cent at The Strand.
As someone who has worked for various student newspapers, I understand how food, drinks, and year-end parties can boost morale and show appreciation for unpaid, overworked staff. It’s especially true for a newspaper that is completely driven by volunteers, as is the case with The Gargoyle. This incident shows there is a serious problem with how much control a student union has over the funding of a student newspaper.
Namely, that it literally has enough power to stop a newspaper from printing.
No student government should ever control funding for a student newspaper, be it at UC, U of T, or any educational institution. A separate board of student directors, newspaper ombudspersons, or a combination of both should be what provides oversight on issues like hiring and appropriate budget funding.
Preceding the decision, The Gargoyle poked fun at members of the UC Lit by annotating the minutes from a prior Lit meeting, only further illustrating why the paper’s funding should never have come from the very organization the student newspaper is responsible for criticizing.
The budget has since been re-evaluated, and eventually approved. Nevertheless, this incident has set up an atmosphere of increased animosity and a “funding chill.”
Unlike a “libel chill”—where news organizations are less likely to pursue specific hard-hitting investigative stories on specific people or corporations out of fear of litigation—a “funding chill” restricts criticism of a ruling institution out of fear of reduced finances (just look at the CBC and the current Harper government!).
If The Gargoyle is to avoid a similar situation in the future, one of two policies will need to be put in place. Either The Gargoyle should establish itself as financially independent from the UC Lit by taking over management of its own student levy, or some other policy should be put in place to ensure future levy funding is never restricted, withheld, or further delayed by the Lit. The $13,418 student levy fund is not a grant and it has no other specified purpose than to continue to finance the 50-year-old UC student newspaper.
A true student press should never suffer ongoing fears of being shut down at any moment, especially when publishing criticism of student politics. But if nothing really changes in this situation, The Gargoyle will continue to run the risk of having their production halted by the decisions of the UC Lit. That’s a terrible reason to stop the presses.
