Campus media saves the day

TESSA VANDERHART, STAFF

Thank you for reading this issue of the Manitoban.

No, really — thank you. With all of the free newspapers available on campus, the online content you’re bombarded with daily, the advertising that researchers say is seeping into your brain, the textbooks you’re supposed to be reading —

Wait, did I say free newspapers? Why, yes: the Winnipeg Free Press will be distributed free of charge at the U of M this fall, as evidenced by the Dollar Wise Clean and Press-sponsored boxes that have very recently popped up around campus. And, of course, you can pick up other free national newspapers — if you know where to look. You may be surprised to know that at one time the Manitoban, like most Canadian student newspapers, opposed the distribution of free “professional” newspapers on campus — most notably, the National Post in 2001.

The Manitoban, you see, receives about 60 per cent of our funding from advertising revenue. We have to compete with the Free Press and the National Post for advertising, though they have advertising teams of hundreds and the Manitoban one part-time advertising coordinator.

But the other 40 per cent of our funding comes from students, and that’s the kicker. Each student pays $3 per semester to fund the Manitoban. That makes it your newspaper.

(For comparative purposes, each term you also pay $2.50 to UMFM, the campus radio station, $6.23 to the Canadian Federation of Students, a provincial and national student lobbying organization, and approximately $45 to the University of Manitoba Students’ Union, UMSU. More information about the student fees collected on top of your tuition is available at umsu.ca.)

So the Manitoban belongs to you; but it’s not the only paper that does.

Whatever you are studying, whatever your interests, there is or was a campus paper for you at some point in U of M history. When engineering students rallied for higher tuition in the 1970s — yes, that’s right: higher tuition — they named a publication after their efforts, the Red Lion. The faculty of arts has the Maelstrom; commerce has the Bottom Line. From year to year, on the whim of faculty student councils, some are more successful than others.

The University of Toronto, with 55,000 students, has more than 50 publications. The U of M, with 27,000, consistently has fewer than 10. I’d like to see that number triple.

Why? Aside from the basic principle that competition demands quality, I hope that there’s something you’re getting out of this newspaper. Whether you’re amused or disgusted, the Manitoban exists to encourage discussion of issues that simply aren’t talked about anywhere else, and to serve our readers as citizens and students. And if there were more student newspapers, I believe that there would be more and better debate, and more students would care more about campus events.

But we try our best: there’s nowhere else that you can read about how the renovations that netted Aramark (now U of M Food Services) a seven-year contract at U of M will be completed weeks after residence students have settled in. Or where you’ll find out that UMSU’s Health and Dental Plan is glitchy again this year, again because of the Aurora registration system. The Manitoban exists to tell these stories; we are the only newspaper around that will sit through a U of M Board of Governors meeting and tell you what the financial situation of your university is, so you don’t have to go yourself. And if you couldn’t care less about the budget, you can always read our culture section.

It should be obvious that I’m in favour of student journalism; to me, it’s equally as obvious why one should be in favour of having as many student newspapers as possible.

My personal mandate, as editor-in-chief, is to get as much as is going on at the U of M into the paper as humanly possible, and get as many of you into it.

And, of course, the second mandate of the Manitoban is to educate students about journalism. To that end, we’ll be sponsoring a number of workshops and open houses of the course of the year, as well as training all of our volunteers and staff the hard way.

How does all of this relate to the Free Press?

Well, it’s up to you, students, readers, to decide: is the Free Press on campus a threat to the Toban? Perhaps I’m naive to think that it’s not — but closest thing to a student issue in the Free Press is the same-old tuition-fee rhetoric and the Tab on Thursdays. Luckily, the Manitoban is published on Wednesdays.

Lucky too, I suppose, that we’re a student paper, and have the luxury of being wrong, of niche advertising, and, of course, of learning our lesson.

So please enjoy the year, and watching the writership of the Manitoban grow every week, as our writers get better and better — just as my editorials will — just as you develop as a student.

If you would like to know more about the Manitoban, I invite you to read our masthead, or e-mail me. I’ll happily provide you with a copy of our constitution and volunteer guide — which are also available online — or any other information about the paper you could dream of.

So, if this is the first issue of the Manitoban you’ve ever picked up, please continue to do so. If you’re a longtime reader, even better. If you have something to say, write a letter to the editor, come to our staff meetings every Wednesday at 3:30 p.m., or watch for community editorial board meetings.

I’ll see you there.