Senate seeks right to control Daily Lobo

Editor,

After reading Sen. Grant Nichols letter on Monday, I couldn’t help but think of some questions that may need to be considered by the UNM community.

Nichols said that the Daily Lobo “would be able to apply for funds like any other student group.” ASUNM already dictates how student groups are run by granting them funding. If the Finance Committee decides that a student group doesn’t “need” something, they will not grant them the money to fund the activity. What if the activity that the Senate decides not to fund is producing an independent publication?

Under Nichols’ proposal, the Lobo would have to petition the ASUNM Finance Committee regarding each penny that the Lobo forecasts to spend for the next year. The fundamental problem with this proposition is that the student government could dictate how the paper operates.

Imagine this scenario: The amendment passes and the Daily Lobo is required to request funding “like any other student group” requesting it, line by line. The editors want to purchase new computers and would have to ask for more funding to do it. The committee decides that there is no need for new ones since it already has computers and thus does not grant the paper funding. ASUNM would in fact be dictating how the paper is run.

Could the “Independent Voice of UNM since 1895” be subjected to the governmental censorship indirectly through ASUNM’s funding whims?

Consider another, more extreme scenario. What if, one day, the paper ran an editorial cartoon about alleged misconduct of members of the Finance Committee a couple of days before the Lobo was set to seek funds from ASUNM? Could these senators be blind to the paper’s content and grant the Lobo the funding that they really needed?

Right now, the ASUNM Constitution guarantees the funding for the Daily Lobo. By receiving the funding directly from eight percent of student fees, the Daily Lobo is free from any intervention from our student government. I urge Jen Liu and the student body to allow the Daily Lobo to enjoy the freedom of press that it has always had.

Whatever the Senate’s intentions, the result is, inevitably, the student government will influence the publication. Some student groups may profit in the short run with more funding, but UNM, as a whole, would be taking a step backward.

-Louis Griego

Anderson Schools

of Management student