by Caleb Fort
Daily Lobo
The ASUNM Senate voted 18-2 Wednesday night in favor of issuing a subpoena to the Daily Lobo's editor in chief.
The subpoena instructs Marisa Demarco to attend an Associated Students of UNM meeting on April 27, three days before her term ends.
ASUNM Vice President Justin Crosby, who introduced the bill, said the subpoena is in response to questions senators have about operations at the Daily Lobo and is not a personal attack on Demarco.
He said the subpoena is meant to send a message that the undergraduate student government wants the Daily Lobo to be more useful to students and to give senators a forum to ask Demarco about the paper.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
"Our whole perspective with this subpoena is to build a better relationship with the Lobo," Crosby said. "We have concerns about how stories are selected to go inside the Lobo and their placement in the paper."
Crosby said ASUNM wants to make sure the Daily Lobo's first priority is to print stories that are relevant to students, such as stories about ASUNM. Crosby said ASUNM has a large impact on the student body and does not get the coverage it deserves.
"In the fall semester, there was close to zero stories about the ASUNM Senate," Crosby said. "Maybe it's not their primary duty, but some of the other issues they focused on are not really relevant to most students."
Demarco said the Daily Lobo provides news that is relevant to students.
"I think we do an excellent job of providing students with information about campus," Demarco said. "I think ASUNM has a problem with us doing our job too well, because ASUNM always wants us to show them in a positive light."
Crosby said he sent two e-mails to Demarco to ask her to speak at an ASUNM meeting but received no response, and the subpoena is a last resort to convince Demarco to attend.
"It's a final attempt to say, 'Please come talk to us,'" Crosby said.
Demarco said she never received the e-mails and ASUNM did not attempt to contact her by phone or in person until hours before the subpoena was issued.
"I'm here 60 or 70 hours a week," Demarco said. "They can come talk to me or call me on the phone like we do with them."
Demarco said the subpoena was in response to recent pieces in the Daily Lobo that questioned the merits of ASUNM.
"I think that this subpoena comes as a direct response to the editorial we wrote about ASUNM's relevance to students," Demarco said. "I think it's kind of childish."
Demarco said the timing of the subpoena and the lack of communication prior to the subpoena indicate it was motivated by recent editorials, not general doubts about the Lobo's operations.
"I do feel like the timing of it is a response to recent things that have been written about them, not necessarily a concern with the overall way things are run," she said.
Demarco said she would have been willing to meet with representatives of ASUNM, but not necessarily in a Senate meeting. She said wants to improve the relationship between the Daily Lobo and ASUNM.
"There's been a lot of animosity - and there has been since I took over - so I do want to open lines of communication," Demarco said.
Crosby said he will deliver the subpoena to Demarco today.
Managing editor's note: Demarco usually copy edits all stories and writes some headlines for the Daily Lobo. However, she did not assist in the editing process of this story or the ASUNM election story.
