LETTER: Rift between ASUNM and student publications needs to be solved

I write to the Daily Lobo as a man who feels like he’s already been defeated. The ASUNM presidential election has taken its toll on me. One of the worst things that I could have possibly predicted has already happened. I lost the support of the people I loved and cared about.

As hurt as I am about this whole situation, I wanted to take this opportunity to learn from the experience and look at things I could have done better. Before all this began, I sat down to develop my platforms for the ASUNM presidential election and was scared to develop a plan to help student publications because it wasn’t really my area of expertise.

What I did know was that the relationship between student publications and ASUNM has never been a good one. I noticed this from day one when I arrived at the university as a freshman.

Speaking from a point of clarification for my campaign, my intentions were never to defund student publications. If I was elected president, I would fund the Daily Lobo the full amount ASUNM is required to give. I cannot speak for future ASUNM administrations and I know that eventually someone is going to try to cut your funding again.

After being criticized for saying I wanted to help the Daily Lobo find third party funding, I didn’t mean it as I wanted to defund the newspaper. I meant it as I think the Daily Lobo should find third party funding because eventually if ASUNM ever tries to cut the funding again when I’m gone, the newspaper won’t have to worry about your operations stopping or people not getting paid.

I think there needs to be a mutual understanding between ASUNM and the Daily Lobo that we are all humans with feelings that can get hurt. The idea behind proposing third party funding was because, speaking from the perspective as an ASUNM senator, some articles the Daily Lobo has written critiquing ASUNM did make me sad. I didn’t care so much to give attention to my sadness, but other senators went on the attack and tried to cut funding for the Daily Lobo.

I want the Daily Lobo to continue its harsh criticism on ASUNM because it ultimately keeps us accountable for what we do, which is why I proposed the idea of third party funding. In the case that another one of our elected officials comes after your funding, it won’t be so life or death when answering the question, “Can the Daily Lobo continue operations?” 

Going back to the idea that we all have feelings that can get hurt, this is where I see the conflict of interest. It doesn’t seem too sustainable for a student government to give money to a newspaper that writes articles about the said student government. When the Daily Lobo writes positive articles about ASUNM, people will say it’s biased because the newspaper is getting funding from us. But when the Daily Lobo writes articles criticizing ASUNM, our elected officials go on the defense and some of them even try to defund you.

I understand the rough conditions journalists at the Daily Lobo have to work with and it makes me stressed out even thinking about it. As a journalist myself, the Daily Lobo has a special place in my heart because it’s produced some of the people I’ve gotten the opportunity to work on films with. I want the Daily Lobo to be here for as long as this university stands, but I don’t even know how to do that.

After an off the record conversation with the Daily Lobo about my plan to help the newspaper, I now understand the lengths the organization has gone through to stay afloat. Anything I could possibly think of to help, the Daily Lobo has probably  already looked into it. The five year plan explanation was really informative to me in terms of how that money from ASUNM is being used. 

This brings me to my conclusion: there is very little I can provide student publication in terms of ideas of what it should do to stay afloat. But I now understand that the funding received from ASUNM contributes to a bigger plan to put the Daily Lobo in a better position for the future.

Current students that hold leadership positions within ASUNM and the Daily Lobo are paying for the mess left behind for us by previous ASUNM and Daily Lobo administrations that couldn’t find a level of mutual respect and understanding. We all need to heal and I hope whoever is elected in this upcoming ASUNM presidential election serves as a turning point for the relationship between ASUNM and student publications. 

Jacob Olaguir is an ASUNM presidential candidate that has served as an ASUNM senator for two terms, studying business administration and film production.