About Veritas. ([Athens, Georgia]) 1970-1970 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 14, 1970)
FREE PRESS " TT/^141" MOUTHPIECE ftCmemcma The University of Georgia subsidizes, with funds including those taken out of the pockets of all students at registration, a "student newspaper" called The Red and Black. While the R. and B. has this year changed its nickname from "The Pre-Eminent College Newspaper" to "The Newspaper for University Stu dents," it remains what it always was: a sham mouth piece for the complacent University administrators and a springboard for student journalists ambitious for well-paid jobs with established newspapers. The foremost device for the University adminis tration to placate the students and deceive them into believing that they have a voice in University affairs is the Student Senate. This organization consists of students wealthy enough to pay for advertisements to get themselves elected Senator, who appoint them selves to committees, make speeches congratulating themselves, and like to play politician. Consistently the Red and Black on its editorial page has endorsed the motions of Student Senate and held out hope to the students that the Senate will actually accomplish something in the area of their (student) rights. Yet, in the past 3 years, the accomplishments of this senate have actually been nil. It is the Red and Black's right to endorse the Senate: that is the right of a newspaper. But the insidiousness and fraud comes in the R. and B. stifling dissent to the Senate's action—or non-action—and creating the facade of student satisfaction. Virtually no letters of dissent have appeared in the R. and B. The student body at Georgia may be apathetic about its so called Government, but 50 students felt strong ly enough about Student Senate neglecting their rights and needs that they formed a third party to run for office last spring on a platform of abolishing the Student Senate This fact was never mentioned in the Red and Black. Yet 405 students voted for that party's president of the student body, C. S. I. party (for Committee on Social Issues). Os all this poten tial, student dissent to the Red and Black's policy of endorsement, not one word has appeared in print. In addition, at least one staff writer for the R. and B. offered on two occasions editorials, well written and restrained, criticizing student government for its hypocrisy and exposing fraudulent campaign prac tices of one of the elected Student Government parties attempting successfully to squeeze out the third party (Independent candidates were elected, but none from the third party). These articles were rejected without comment by the R. and B. editors, fearful of printing an unkind word about President Fred Davison's play Parliament. Radical journalists never find themselves appointed to the editorial staff of Red and Black decision-makers. Those elected are those who are most able to impress themselves on the journalism school committee as rising young journalists. Once "TO BE ONE, YOU WILL HAVE TO KNOW ALL." At The Glass of Hill Wall we try our best to satisfy you. If we don't, then do your thing, brothers and sisters, and we'll al ways love you. NO. 1 WALL STREET The Home of The "Veritas" they assume the editorial offices, they play "journal ist" to the furtherance of their careers and at the expense of honesty with the students, who pay their salaries. For they are salaried for their efforts on behalf of the Administration and paid out of the "student activities" fees everyone pays—some $36 a year PER STUDENT! Exposes occasionally appear in the pages of the Red and Black, but who benefits, and what is ever changed by them? The R. and B. editors look like aware young writers because of them, and the Admin istration looks a little vulnerable, less tight-fisted. But why do the revelations in print never seem to bring results? Two reasons: Any material for an "expose" has to come from a member of the administration, and the closed mouth on its part is the end of that. Secondly, what action could be expected? The ad ministration is not responsible to the student, as was demonstrated after the anti-Cambodia demonstration of 3,500 students last May. And there is no student power to insure that the administration take action, the Student Senate being its handmaiden. It is a vicious circle. There is an additional reason why R. and B. editors shy off from controversy in the paper. That is the Almighty Buck, fear for their careers as jour nalists. They can use experience on a student news paper as a job reference after graduation, but if controversy or anti-Establishment writings appear under their names, they will suffer in a job interview for a lucrative editorial job. The present editor, for instance, has held a profita ble part-time job with Georgia Power in public rela tions. This forces her to avoid dealing with issues of environmental pollution and high electric rates. (Power companies, while one of the nation's worst polluting industries, spend millions in advertising themselves as "good citizens whereever they serve." The advertising costs are passed along to you, the consumer, in high rates.) Similarly, the managing editor, a summer "intern" in p.r. for Southern Bell, has a stake in the Establishment after graduation. Job security is a good enough reason, apparently, for turning one's back on social ills, playing at journalism and dealing in hypocrisy with a constipated Uni versity administration. The Red and Black may not seem a vital thing to the people of the Athens community, but this is only because it has not been a vital force in the past. And it never will be as long as active voices in student journalism are kept quiet and the mouthpiece is given to safe, Establishment journalists. • • • No part of the article you have just read could have ever appeared in "The Newspaper for University Students." It was written by a University student. Joey Doakes Wednesday, Oct. 14, 1970 Convention that almost wasn't Foiled again! The S.D.S. Regional Convention in Atlanta was dealt a neat stab in the back by the Georgia State University administration. Organizers of the convention had secured permission for the use of a meeting hall a week before its start. Then administrators intervened, demanding payment for the use of the hall. S.D.S. agreed to pay. So everything was cool until the day of the start of the convention, then the University delivered the coup de grace by denying the use of the hall alto gether. S.D.S., it seems, is a political organization and its use of their facilities would compromise the University's neutral position. A political organization Political, like the Young Democrats, the Young Re publicans, and, yes, the YAF, all of which use the school like a free crash pad. (The university police added their own creative touch by tearing down SDS's posters.) The convention went on anyway thanks to the People's Baptist Church which kindly provided the use of their building to S.D.S. But the university's duplicity in the incident will remain a reminder of the system's unfair treatment of radical dissent. Let's not let it happen in Athens. David Rosinger The wave of bombings—or attempted bombings— this year has seriously endangered the ability of the New Left to communicate with the uncommitted majority of Americans. However, there has been relatively little criticism of terrorism from within the movement. Many are swayed by the argument: "We tried non-violent means, but the establishment didn't respond." 0.K., but what's happened since the bombings? Well, after three big explosions last spring the Con gressional knee started jerking and there was a surfeit of anti-subversive legislation such as the Defense Facilities Act. And after the University of Wisconsin bombing last month Nixon asked for and got un limited police power on campus. There is a Newtonian law of politics: violent action from the left causes equal reaction from the right. Only the reaction from the right in this case is more than equal. Nixon and the Colonel have wanted to put a halt to dissent since they took power two years ago, but it wasn't until now that they had occasion to act. Now with the news media painting the left in vivid shades of insanity, violence, and death, the public is practically begging the government to tear up the Constitution if that's what it takes to stop this rampage. So what have the bombings accomplished? Besides destroying some corporation offices in New York and a few dusty research papers in Wisconsin, explosions have killed two allies of Rap Brown in Maryland, killed three Weathermen, and murdered an anti-war grad student. But of course these are dispensable to the Revolution. What are the real consequences? Just this: that repression and the possibility of totalitarian government in the U.S. are more real now than at any time in the past. David Rosinger XEROX #6 Copies too , c <6S Copies Copies' Paperbock Books Traded 2 FOR 1 Copies Unlimited 190 West Broad 3 Why the bombing?
