My name is Bret Brown. I am an alumnus of UMR (2005). In full diclosure, I was the Editor-in-Chief of the Miner for about a year and a half. I have a few things to say to everyone who is up in arms about The Miner's budget and the associated lawsuit.

You have got to be kidding me!

--Where are your priorities?--
You whine and complain about a paper you don't like, acting like the couple of bucks you would save actually matter. Meanwhile, the annual tuition raises the university approves far outpace inflation (and financial aid and scholarships aren't adjusted for inflation at all). As if that weren't enough, the university raises existing fees and adds new fees without any repercussions from the student body. Which matters more, the couple of bucks a year you spend on the paper (even if you think it's a waste), or the thousands more school will cost you by the time you graduate? Add in student fees you are paying for the Havener Center (which don't seem to be worth the cost), the mandatory two year dorm sentence (which costs more than living off campus), and the mandatory meal plan policy (more expensive and crappy) and you'll find that the university causes plenty of overpriced lines on your meager student budget. (By the way, Chartwells' contract was renewed at least a couple times under the radar. Why aren't you having big StuCo meetings about that?)

It seems people who cut the paper's budget did it because they didn't like it or didn't like the people running it. Whatever the reason, money wasn't it. I'm sure the StuCo reps went ahead and patted themselves on the back for saving students enough money to buy a couple cheeseburgers, though. Why aren't they this indignant about REAL costs to students? Why aren't rising student costs the topics the StuCo presidential candidates are debating?

--Concerning the paper itself---
A point you haven't considered is that newspapers (on actual newsprint, not on 8.5X11 paper or online) are used to keep historical records. The Miner has archives in the library if anyone ever wants to dig them up for some sort of research. I bring this up to make two points. First, part of the student fees really pays for services, not just entertainment: letters to the editor, coverage of boring but historically important news, crime blotter, mundane listings of sports scores (yeah, they don't do UMR athletics justice, but they need to be in print), publication of student government notices and documents, and the student life section. That's just off the top of my head.

And how would you like all the news that alumni (and googlers) get about the university to come through the UMR Public Relations office? (I like Andrew Careaga personally, but he works for the university.) I know The Miner online edition helps a lot of people keep tabs on their alma mater.

I have plenty of other reasons to keep the paper, but I won't bore you with more until people show some interest in listening.

--About the Student Activity Fee approval process--
Please note that The Miner staff had a grand total of eight minutes to make their case before your apparently ill-informed representatives drastically cut their budget. If nothing else, I hope that you would agree with me that the current cattle-call that is the student fee meeting is unfair and ridiculous. At least give everyone ample time to prepare and make their cases.

--I'm aware, but not sorry, that I resurrected an old discussion--
I realize there was a thread earlier about the paper suing the university, but the discussion was very one-sided (it seems like Miner staff isn't commenting about the issue).

Thank you for listening if you read this far.

A few quick hits:
-The Miner gets threatened with lawsuits surprisingly regularly. They have representation through student media organizations, though their lawyer in this lawsuit's probably pro bono.
-Cutting circulation cuts ad revenue. You don't know the news business, but cutting the number of papers in print will do more harm to ad revenue than good. So cutting circulation (including going online) actually makes it harder to produce a paper on ad revenue alone.
-Writers get paid something like 22 bucks an article. Research articles (even crappy ones) take 4 hours and up to write. We're talking minimum wage here.
-For those complaining about quality, The Miner has up and down years (usually based on staff turnover), but it's been getting progressively better each year. Look at issues from '95 and earlier. Seriously.
-Apparently there's a new paper called the Mine Shaft (sorry if that's spelled incorrectly). Good for the people involved in that, but I think after a few years they'll discover how hard it is to keep a quality product churning out weekly, especially after the founders graduate (I think Ryan Abarelli knows what I'm talking about). Paying writers helps recruitment and retention enormously, even if it just adds up to beer money.

They had 8 minutes to make a brief presentation... but the proposed budget was discussed for over an hour.. and honestly, I have never seen an organization's president dig a hole for their RSO like Michelle Martin did that night...

So I can expect to see you opening your check book to keep The Miner afloat? I mean, you seem to enjoy it more than most of the people paying for it, so why not quit being a freeloader and pony up some dough? It is just a few bucks....

Jobenly you also fail to mention that they were late with their proposal to SAFB for a presentation. That means that SAFB did not even have to consider them when distributing funding.

I have heard all to often this excuse of, "Well your money is going to KMNR as well." or "Your money is being wasted on other things." That is fine that needs to be dealt with as well. That does not change the fact that our money is being wasted on the miner. Not only is our money being wasted on the miner, but when we try to minimize the amount of wasted money they sue us. That is ridiculous no matter how many other excuses you make.

The miner claims they are in this for the good of the students. The bottom line is the students want the paper to be gone. Why the paper cannnot understand that is beyond me.

No, the students don't want the paper to be gone. They want the staff writers to be paid less. Just because you're a big fucking douche and think that THE MAJORITY OF REPRESENTATIVES THAT VOTED ON THIS are wrong doesn't change the fact that it's what they wanted.

The Miner may get threatened with lawsuits regularly, but it seems like other people/entities get threatened with lawsuits regularly as well from a member of the Miner staff who will go unnamed. So who fucking cares? The current exec board of the Miner are a bunch of attention deprived bitches that just want to "do something that matters" even if that means "looking like a bunch of dumbfucks." They're doing a great job so far!

How do you know the students want the paper gone? I for one enjoy the paper, and I see alot of people reading it around campus. I think you have no idea what you are talking about. Just because you feel that way does not mean that the rest of us feel that way. I do think the miner should STFU and just print the paper, but I do not think it should dissapear.

I think because of this bullshit it should disappear for a few years, personally.

Edit: Oh yeah, topic starter, there's no one in support of the Miner in the other thread because the only people that think what they're doing ISN'T bullshit is the actual staff. And, you know, in case you haven't noticed, they're involved in a frivolous lawsuit at the moment, so they don't want to say anything that could hurt them!

Maybe you're right that The Miner was late getting their budget in. I don't know. What I do know is that cutting funding for an organization as longstanding as The Miner by that much for a procedural error is silly. Maybe if it the offending organization were the Super Soaker Club or something on those lines it would make sense to cut funding that deeply. The Miner, however, as I mentioned above, is not simply a club. It's not around to entertain you like SUB, though it should do some of that. It's around to provide services to the UMR community (not just the student body), most of which I listed above. Students think they're the only people that value the paper. I guarantee that professors, faculty, staff (yeah, secretaries, custodians, and such), and alumni make up the most consistent readership of The Miner.

You would not believe how fast The Miner gets contacted by the university when it rips into something specific with any vigor (or if anything "edgy" is printed). And for good reason. The articles end up in Google searches. Alumni see the papers around campus when they visit. Staff reads articles. Basically everyone the university cares about sees the paper. Which means that students have a voice on campus. If you send in a letter to the editor any longer or more thoughtful than "The Miner is a load of crap," they'll print it. Even if "The Miner is a load of crap," is really what you're trying to say.

You say the majority of campus doesn't care about the paper. Maybe you're right. But does the majority of campus play intramural sports? Does the majority of campus use the weight rooms in the Mulitpurpose Center? Does the majority of campus go to the St. Pat's parade? No. But students still fund them. Why? Because those things are beneficial to the university as a whole. And giving the campus a legitimate (i.e. not an internet forum, sorry Seekers) voice, a permanent record, of what is going on and what is important to them matters, even if most people don't read the paper.

I was saying that The Miner is not a waste. Even in its worst issue, it was an historical record, a forum for students (if they felt like using it), a place for classifieds (free to the UMR community), a place for clubs to get publicity, and a valuable learning experience for the staff members. It's not often that you can get a campus job (even if it just covers your gas bill) that you're proud to put on your resume.

I was trying to make a case for the paper, but I was also trying to point out how silly it is that this is even an issue. The student council is crippling an important part of the campus (and no small part of it is out of spite for the former editor, someone with lots of rough edges in her personality) without any sense of the gravity of their actions. The university blows tons of your money and then goes to the mattresses over a couple of bucks in student fees. The mere fact that none of the parties is even discussing the issue (despite pleas from The Miner's new Editor-in-Chief) is ridiculous. People laying into The Miner are bloviating about principle while not doing one iota about the real issues (financial and otherwise) that students are facing. Cutting the budgets of student organizations while saying nothing about real costs to students is shameful. Does no one see the absurdity and hypocrisy in this but me?

You're right. I could donate to The Miner to help them out. But do you know what? It wouldn't make any difference. I can't make up that kind of shortfall on my own. My name's not Havener. And I have my own financial issues I have to deal with.

Some of you would say "good riddance," but The Miner is an institution of the university, as long-standing as things like St. Pat's or The Puck. It's not a blowoff class that no one's taking anymore. It's not here just to entertain you. It's an important part of the community that lets students stretch themselves in ways not typically available at UMR. Not to mention the fact that the university would lose a ton of face if there were no paper. Come on! Even technical schools and community colleges have student papers.

And thanks, cuz. I never meant to come across as saying, "Why doesn't anyone care about the paper?" I know lots of people like it. It's just, "Oh yeah? Lots of people like the paper!" doesn't seem to carry any weight with the (for some reason angry) opponents of the paper.

I'm sorry I write things so lengthy, but The Miner, its place in the community, and the absurdity of this whole battle is complicated. Which just underscores my point that no one in StuCo seemed to take time to really understand the issue here. That's the job of the SAFB, of course. Personally, I've had mostly positive experiences in the past with the SAFB. From my understanding, there was no SAFB rep for The Miner. That rep should have, without bias of course, come to understand all things that The Miner is and all the things it does and give his or her honest opinion on the matter. Apparently there was a serious lack of communication there; the SAFB screwed up too, which is why I'm laying into them, too.

do writers really get paid?

i like the miner and all, but i don't see why they need to get paid.

whatever happened to writing for the good of the people?

There are three reasons why having a newspaper at UMR is hard. It's a little off topic, but not by much.

1. The Miner is mostly engineers.
2. UMR has no journalism major (there was a class for a semester, but I don't know if they offered it again).
3. UMR is a smallish school. Rolla is a small town.

Engineers generally have bad writing skills. There are exceptions, though. This means that nearly all of the staff of The Miner have to be trained from the ground up, which affects quality. Also, engineering students at UMR tend to be very busy with classes and projects.

The motivation to be on a school paper at other universities comes from a desire to get experience for your career (most writers are journalism, political science, pre-law, English, or communcations majors). They join the paper for the same reasons you might join a design team (you like it and it's helps with your resume). Also, classes related to journalism often mandate (and grade) article submissions to newspapers.

The news in a small town is slow. The news at a small university is usually slow. It's out there, but there aren't exactly any political protests, exotic cultural interests, pro sports teams (or division one college even), and the like to get excited about. So you have to generate your own exciting material, which is harder, which is bad if your writers and editors are thoroughly novices.

It all adds up to problems with recruitment and retention. Often mediocre staff is kept on because there isn't anyone else. Sometimes questionable leaders are elected because there isn't anyone else. The pay doesn't make the work put into a paper worth it, but it does keep people from quitting to get a work-study or Wal-Mart job.

I've been trying to make the point that the paper is good for the university community and haven't heard many points to the contrary (I want to hear them if you have them). If it is decided that a paper, in abstract, is worth having, we need to decide what it needs to run. I'm saying that to have a paper that turns out a regular, quality product for any length of time at this university, writers need to be paid. Otherwise you'll have a glorified newsletter or blog for a newspaper, losing most of the community benefits the paper provides. The Miner is not just a club. People blow off club meetings and forget to pay their dues and skip on test weeks. The Miner is public, so when you blow a week off, it shows (and reflects on you personally as well as the University). I've been trying to show how the paper is more than just entertainment or a club. It is a unique part of the campus. The pay helps keep quality people involved and new prospects interested.

I put myself through school through scholarships, financial aid, summer jobs, and my pay from The Miner. I would not have been able to make the investment of time and energy necessary to be Editor-in-Chief if I also had to hold down a job at Wal-Mart. The money wasn't much, but all I needed was food and gas. The Miner was (some of) my food and gas.

Again, this post is long, but the subject is important and involved. Let me restate that a sufficient discussion about the issue could not take place in the amount of time given to The Miner by StuCo to make its case. They should have at least given The Miner enough time to write even one editorial in its defense.

That's fine and dandy, but the funding that was cut was cut from student activity fees - money that comes directly from the students and not from any of the groups you mention.

The problem, as I see it, is there are too many BS sections. This could just be me, but who cares about the POS car of the week, or movie of the week, or the sex column, or the editor crying about how cutting funding=censorship (wrong, just plain wrong). Most of the paper is stupid stuff like that, why should these people be paid for that type of crap?

Oh, and I see your point, but do IM sports members get paid?

Trust me, you don't need to bring up the way the University HEMORRHAGES money to me. I am the biggest bitch when it comes to Hanever, and the MILLIONS of dollars the STUDENTS have had to pay for that POS. Or the hideous gigantic planters in front of the Library that took ALL summer to build...

Hey the car of the week section was the only one I looked at!

I like car of the week.

So, evidently just me.....