Coming only once a year, Annual General Meetings of VUWSA are always interesting. The meeting this coming Wednesday (4 April) will not only have the fascinating presentation of accounts, but several constitutional ammendments are planned. All are moved by President Andrew Tees, and one, if passed, will have particularly far reaching consequences for VUWSA. It is moved Tees/Stainthorpe that:

The Salient editor each year shall be elected by SRC in the third term of the previous year and if a vacancy shall occur for the position of editor of Salient then SRC will elect a new editor within at least thirty days of the position becoming vacant, the Publications Board retaining the power to appoint an interim student newspaper editor for Salient if it becomes necessary, or if the vacancy occurs during the vacation.

Under the constitution as it presently stands, it is the Publication Board which appoints the Editor, as well as generally administering Salient (and other publications of the Association like Handbook). The Publications Board contains six reps from the SRC. three from the Executive, (one of whom is the Publications Officer), the Salient Editor, a member of the Technical staff, the advertising manager and the Pulications Board Treasurer.

The creation of the Publications Board was to separate as far as possible the officers of the association from the student press which has the responsibility of reporting on the activities of these representatives. It is my belief that of all the changes Tees could attempt to make to the structure of VUWSA, this is probably the most damaging and short-sighted.

The function of Salient

To understand why Salient was originally separated as much as possible from the association, some consideration must be given to what the function of Salient should be. I believe Salient has four principle responsibilities.

A Service Medium

Salient must provide a service medium for students. It must publicise the activities which involve students or student organisations. In this context Salient must publicise the various activities of the association and its clubs, particularly major campaigns on such issues on the Bursaries issues. This extends to publishing notices for the Association, for example to publicise SRC's, AGM's etc, and indeed there is a constitutional obligation on Salient to perform this function.

Under any system set up, the editor will contain control over the day to day running of the newspaper. The diligence with which an editor attempts to uncover all the activities occuring on campus will still be left to his/her discretion.

Reporting on the Representatives

The second responsibility is to ensure that students are kept informed on the activities of their elected representatives to see whether they are performing their job adequately. Are they fulfilling their election promises to represent the members of the Association?

Does the President follow the policy of VUWSA when he attends NZUSA Executive meetings? Are the Executive doing their job properly? Is the Executive following the wishes of SRC? Students have a right to be presented with some answers to these questions.

From a Financial Viewpoint

Each member paid $43 towards VUWSA giving a total income of over a quarter of a million dollars. Of this nearly $100,000 is administered directly by VUWSA. Students have a right to be kept informed on how this organisation to which they have contributed so much money, is functioning. Therefore Salient has a responsibility to be always critically evaluating the performance of the various VUWSA representativs who adminster this money.

By giving the editor the effective status of an SRC officer is to ignore this vital function. It makes the editor into a political appointee and thus not in the same position to criticise others in the Association than as at present. It could be then argued that the editor, as an SRC Officer, has no right to publically attack his/her colleagues. Certainly making the editor answerable to SRC will make an editor more wary about making some comments, comments which in some cases are justified and should be made.

This point in fact raises an ambiguity in the motion as it presently stands. It is clear that the editor is elected by SRC, but not who s/he is responsible to. If this is not to be changed (ie it is to remain the business of the Publications Board) the editor is placed in the ludicrous position of being answerable to one part of VUWSA but being selected by another. If of course it is intended that the editor is to be responsibely to the SRC, the editor will be completely tied to whatever the SRC policy may be at the time, the consequences of this will be more fully examined in the next section. But, in connection with the reporting aspect of Salient, by making the Editor a part of the Association, would be to make it far more difficult for him/her to criticise the Association.

The Outside World

The third responsibility is more difficult to frame precisely. Our whole university system is based around the precept that it is possible to ignore the events in the outside world— to quietly study in ignorance of the injustices that are being perpetuated around us. Thankfully VUWSA has not succumbed to this bankrupt policy. In our democratic SRC's, members of the Association debate issues ranging from Library hours to super power contention. Salient too should discuss all these matters.

I look on with contempt the argument that students should not be concerned with those issues which, in the words of Tees "do not directly relate to their welfare". Although the university has tried to completely isolate itself from the world around it, the attempt has failed, as it must. Students are affected by many of the events which take place outside the "hallowed halls" of learning. Furthermore many are interested and concerned about what is happening, even if it is not directly affecting them. To some extent Salient must act as a foil for the elements in the universtiy which encourages a withdrawal from the real world.

If Tees' motion goes through Salient may well be unable to perform this vital function. If the editor is to be made answerable to SRC (and this seems to me an inevitable corrolory of the motion), Salient's editorial policy could easily become that of the SRC. If the SRC has the policy supporting freely available abortion, will Salient be able to print articles by the anti-abortion groups? Will SRC demand from prospective editors that they place no international articles in the newspaper? Such restrictions, which could be imposed if the amendment is adopted, will completely destroy Salient's ability to present students with a picture of the outside world.

A Forum for Debate

The fourth responsibility is to provide a forum for debate, debate on any issues which concern students. This debate will inevitably involve contentious issues, violently held opinions. Through its articles Salient provokes debate, challenges opponents to argue the case. By offering different perspective to the same problems, I believe Salient develops the understanding of its readers. If Salient's editorial policy became the policy of the SRC, Salient would lose the opportunity to take these controversial stands.

I believe that all these functions are essential for a proper student newspaper. One that lacked political news would be as irresponsible as one which contained no notices of events on campus, or letters to the editor. To be successful Salient must fulfill these four functions. I believe that appointing an editor by the SRC will severely curtail the service that Salient provides to its readers.

Existing Checks on the Editor

There is marked difference between the opportunity students have to evaluate their elected representatives, and the opportunity they have for gauging the performance of the Salient editor. Few students directly see the work of the President or the other elected officers (which is why some of them do so little), and Salient's role is to endeavour to fill this gap as much as possible. The work of the Salient Editor however is on display every Monday morning. His views, attitudes, prejudices and biases are open for all to see. If members of the Association are dissatisfied with her/his performance, they have the power to dismiss the editor. They also have the power to dismiss any of their elected representatives of course, however, generally the only opportunity they have to see his/her performance, is through the columns of Salient.

For this reason it is particularly distressing that the motion to start to bring Salient under the control of the political "heavies" (ie those in the Exec and in SRC) has come from the President of the Association. Perhaps he wishes he had been able to muzzle some of the legitimate criticism he has come in for in Salient this year.

The Selection Process

There is an attitude which Tees appears to follow, which suggests that the more people there are involved in a decision making process, the more "democratic" it will be. The argument is pure hogwash. In general terms there are two tests which should be applied to any selection procedure; Is this the most acceptable procedure from a political standpoint?, and will this method give us the best person for the position?

By considering the procedure from a "political standpoint", I mean that we should consider whether the representative nature of the position necessitates having an election. Clearly if a person is to represent a student body s/he must have a mandate to do so, a mandate in the form of a popular vote.

Turning to the editor, as already mentioned, we are not considering a representative position, therefore the necessity for having an election for political propriety is absent. So we should move on to determine the best way of selecting an editor.

There are a large number of abilities that any editor must have. For a start, rather than an ability at public speaking (which is necessary, generally, to win elections), an editor should be able to write clearly. This is hardly likely to be revealed at an SRC. But most importantly there are a large number of technical aspects in which a prospective editor must be competent.

In Issue 2 of Salient this year we ran a brief run-down of the technical aspects of assembling a newspaper. None of the tasks that are called for are easy, all require skill and experience. It is completely fallacious to consider that the editor merely has to sit in an office and write a few articles. It is a highly skilled job and it is ludicrous to suppose that an SRC of several hundred students, most of whom would have little idea of the work involved, will be able to correctly assess the relative abilities of a number of candidates to perform these tasks adequately. Perhaps SRC should select the best candidate for Station Manager of Radio Active. That job is clearly one which involves a large measure of technical competetence. Although the Salient office lacks the bewildering array of dials and knobs of the Active studio, the work is no less technical.

The existing arrangement, an appointment by the Publications Board, however does allow for a more satisfactory [unclear: invest] gation of applicatants to see it they [unclear: have] necessary qualities. For a start most [unclear: me] of the board have at least some [unclear: familiaria] with the way a student newspaper is [unclear: run] as it is interest in this area which leads [unclear: th] to stand for the Board.

The other main advantage of the [unclear: exist] system is that the members of the [unclear: Board] nerally have some knowledge of the [unclear: appl] cants. This is not because Salient is a [unclear: "c] sed-shop", but rather the editors for [unclear: one] year are invariably drawn from the [unclear: prece] ding year's staff. The advantages of [unclear: this] tradition are quite obvious. If nothing [unclear: e] they ensure that prospective editors [unclear: have] some appreciation of the work [unclear: involved]. The successful candidate will be in the [unclear: p] sition of being able to train new staff [unclear: rat -] her than having to be trained by them.

The Question of Bias

Over the years Salient has been [unclear: attack] because of its so-called "political [unclear: bias"]. appears that Tees is in part reacting [unclear: again] this bias by moving the motion. The [unclear: poi][unclear: Would] like to make here is that, [unclear: whoeve][unclear: its] Salient, whatever their political [unclear: vie] point, they will produce a "biased" [unclear: news] paper.

Every person in this unviersity has a [unclear: p] litical bias of some sort or other. In [unclear: som] people it is more developed (ie more [unclear: clea] ly defined) than in others, but it exists [unclear: in] all of us. It is impossible to produce a [unclear: ne] paper that will not be "biased". In [unclear: every] article the views of the writer are [unclear: represe] ted, it is inevitable. It is also desirable.

So-called "impartiality" does not [unclear: exis] It is a great myth that those who wish [unclear: to] ignore what is happening around them [unclear: en] devour to spread. The second point is [unclear: ev] more important. It is that [unclear: "impartiality"] is not even desirable. No responsible [unclear: wri] ter can ignore facts, nor can s/he [unclear: distort] them to fit their own views, however if [unclear: o] tries to eliminate one's personal bias, [unclear: the] suit is an article which says nothing at all An article not worth the paper it's [unclear: writte] on.

Lack of impartiality is not peculiar [unclear: to] Salient however. Read any [unclear: worthwhile] journal, Newsweek, National Business [unclear: Re] view or Beijing Review, they all have [unclear: thei] biases, all the articles make an analysis and express a point of view. To [unclear: analyse] competently and clearly is the mark [unclear: of] good journalism. One analyses events [unclear: usi] one's own ideas as a basis - no good [unclear: writer] can analyse in a vacuum.

Peter Beach