As the Coordinating Committee of the WSA, one of our main responsibilities is to facilitate communication between the Assembly and the campus. This year, the WSA has made a concerted effort to consistently share our meeting agendas and minutes summaries each week in the Argus. This information, however, is printed in small type, is difficult to locate, and sometimes is not even published. The Argus appears to feel that this format is sufficient to cover the issues the WSA deals with on a weekly basis. It is often the case that the information submitted by the WSA to the Argus is the only WSA coverage students read about in the paper.
Though the WSA has an obligation to communicate with students, the Argus staff also has an obligation to be active, engaged reporters for our campus. Ignoring what is discussed at WSA meetings creates an incomplete news section in the paper.
In the WSA this semester, we have only seen an Argus reporter attend our meetings twice. In fact, one week a reporter missed our meeting and then asked WSA members to basically write an article for him; these are not sound journalistic practices. Just in the past three months, here are a few important parts of our WSA meetings that the Argus did not report on in the paper:
– President Bennet’s presentation about the process and his criteria for selecting the new Dean of the College
– WSA members’ resolutions to change the dining system and re-evaluate the chalking ban on campus
– Marcia Bromberg, VP of Finance, and her update on the future of Long Lane, senior housing, and the RIDE
Most recently, the Argus wrote an editorial criticizing WSA election procedure while never attending or writing about two general assembly meetings and three Constitutional Review meetings where the issue of election procedure was discussed at length. The Argus receives our agendas every Thursday night—they have plenty of time to prepare for issues that will be addressed on Sunday at WSA meetings, yet these issues are rarely acknowledged in the following paper.
What happens in campus government may not be of interest to everyone at Wesleyan, but the campus newspaper should cover what happens at WSA meetings. Better communication is an issue the Assembly grapples with each year; though we try to share information through e-mails, fliers, conversation hours, and our website, we know that the best way to reach students is through the Argus. WSA members devote hours each Sunday night and throughout the week to work on student concerns. The Argus should spend more time reporting on WSA actions and letting students know what their representatives are or are not doing for the campus. As the major weekly news publication at Wesleyan, it is ridiculous that the Argus does not care to attend our meetings and keep students informed of weekly happenings in the WSA.
Sincerely,
The Coordinating Committee, WSA
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