"In addition to the new chairs, the Senate has chosen to accept gifts from the Athletic Department."

Now... I'm not gonna say I love the way Senate is doing things right now, 'cause I don't... but, um... that subtitle... uhhhh... there's no better way to put that?

I agree with OldGoldLegs...
How inappropriate for the UDK to suggest that Senate OK'd "gifts" from Athletics. Senate simply rejected a horribly written bill from the Rights Committee. The UDK often preaches about Student Senate funding 3rd party organizations and how wrong that is..... guess what? Student Senate funds the UDK! A third Party! I encourage all Student Senators to begin to question the funding of our government's "watchdog." I also encourage them to write legislation that would dramatically cut the UDK's funding from Student Senate. They may get it back when they write correct, honest, unbiased legislation.

Maybe the UDK Editorial Board should write something about their funding??? How's that for free speech???

Tell your Student Senator.... Cut the UDK's funding from student fees! It's not fair! I shouldn't pay for it!

That dirty rag the Kansan...

Certainly whomever edited this article would have accurately reflected the mood in the room last night, amiright? I guess it was not important. As stated earlier, we did not "choose" to keep receiving gifts. Rather, we failed a horribly written bill from the rights committee. I might add that several senators had proposed amendments that would have fixed this bill to a semi-passable state, but we decided to fail it instead, before we could hear their ideas.

I certainly hope that when the new senate deals with this in the fall, they have the time to examine this issue front to back and write a piece of legislation that holds all of us accountable. I don't think we need to ban gifts all together, but how about we have to report the gifts we receive?

So in other words, cut the funding until the Kansan staff writes what you want it to? The Kansan is not meant to be a propaganda rag for Senate, sorry.

I sincerely hope that if and when you ever run for real office, you're better prepared for actual media relations. I doubt the Star, Times, Post, Tribune, etc. is going to care much if you don't like what they write. And in the real world, you can't cut funding for every newspaper that pisses you off.

Grow up.

Cutting funding would accomplish what, exactly?

Cutting funding would accomplish what, exactly?
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Probably not a whole lot. I doubt he has any clue exactly how much the Kansan pulls in a semester vs. what Senate actually pays them (it's not a whole lot). Student Senate, to my knowledge, also gets event advertising in the newspaper, which I'm reasonably sure would cease immediately if they were to cut Kansan funding. Heck, the cut funding might be offset from the extra advertising dollars that could result from selling Senate's ad space. Does he think that ALL of the Kansan's money comes from Senate?

I'd say Senate needs the Kansan for PR far more than the Kansan needs Senate. A politician needs the newspaper, but to newspapers, politicians are a dime a dozen.

The Student Activity fee allows each student to receive one free copy of the Kansan every day. This funding has pretty much nothing to do with the overall production of the newspaper, and allows the Kansan to not have to charge students for their first copy of the newspaper.

So, if I'm understanding this correctly, withholding funds from the Student Activity fee would serve no purpose other than to make students fork over $.25 for their Kansan every day instead of getting it for free. In which case, I'd assume that students' ire would be aimed more at Senate than at the Kansan.

But if you're quite sure that students would rather pay for their newspaper than get it for free, put it to a referendum and see how it does.

I'm pretty sure that you can't cut the Kansan's funding from Student Senate because it doesn't have any. The UDK is funded by ad sales. They receive no money from the state.

The only funding that Senate allocates to the Kansan is the $95,000 that pays for students to receive a free copy every day. It doesn't affect salaries, production or anything like that. Taking away that funding would do nothing except hurt the students. It wouldn't do a damn thing toward forcing the Kansan to be Senate's mouthpiece (which is what this is really all about — write what we want you to or we'll cut the purse strings). Threatening an independent publication because it dares to disagree with you has more place in a dictatorship than at an open-minded university.

But you're right, the Kansan's money does come from ad sales and it gets no money from the state legislature.

Here's the big problem I have with senate's intentions. If you were to destroy the paper -- but hermeschick has show that you can't (sweet burn hermes) -- you would be screwing over the students who work on the publication out of their careers.

Students show their UDK stories to employers when applying for jobs. As a former UDK reporter, that's how I got my first few jobs.

It's pretty arrogant for student senators to try to punish reporters for doing their job. Sure you don't like what's being said about your coalition, but a journalist's job is to report what's happening. Obviously senators in bed with KU Athletics (metaphor) or other organizations is something students should know about.

Please, senators, stop the petty whining about how you don't get portrayed as good guys all the time. Student senate isn't important enough to constitute trying to sabotage others' careers. Grow up and learn to take it in stride. If you get into actually relevant politics, you'll have to deal with being the hero and villain. Get used to it.

Senators, don't be a Hugo Chavez. Support your local paper.

I think one thing to remember is that Student Fee dollars do not work the same way as money from Senate Appropriation, Line-Item, or Reserve Account. The fees represent many different student services that might not otherwise be possible without student fees. They are also not required to conform to the same rules that govern those other accounts.

The media fee is always one that people want to cut. In fact it comes in about 3-5 year cycles that someone wants to eliminate it. This seems especially true in terms of Senate coverage. The last time, I remember someone from the Kansan informing Senate that it made up like 4-6% of their total budget. I am guessing it might be the same or less now. As a result, the message of we want change just means that the Kansan has to work slightly harder for ad revenue.