Editors
resign over Forty-Niner changes
By Brian Brannon
On-line Forty-Niner
Students
and faculty criticized a decision the journalism
department made last week to restructure
the On-line Forty-Niner because student
editors of the newspaper were not permitted
to vote on the proposal.
The Forty-Niner Task Force, a faculty committee
put together by journalism department Chairman
William Babcock, agreed to make the newspaper
an independent student publication by fall
2003.
Journalism majors Alisha Gomez and Kimberly
Pasquis resigned their positions for next
semester as editor in chief and managing
editor, respectively, to protest the lack
of student representation in the decision-making
process.
“I want to make a statement that the way
we were treated was not right and the way
they went about [making the changes] was
not ethical,” Pasquis said.
Business Manager Catherine Petite said she
could see how students who work every day
on the publication would be upset to hear
that its fate had been decided by other
people.
“It’s a very hard pill to swallow,” Petite
said.
Babcock said he maintains an “open door
policy” and that he had invited students
to speak with him before the task force
made its decision. Babcock said the Forty-Niner
editors were not included due to a potential
conflict of interest.
William Mulligan, head of the print journalism
option, said he chose not to participate
in the task force.
“I’m not opposed to any change or a different
model for the newspaper,” he said. “But
I am very much opposed to the way that it
was handled. The students were treated what
I feel was very unfairly, and they didn’t
have much voice to what was going on for
what was supposedly a student newspaper.”
Babcock told Forty-Niner editors that the
decision will benefit the newspaper by giving
students greater reign. He said it would
also benefit the department by allowing
modifications to the current curriculum.
“We’re not doing a good job here in training
journalism students,” Babcock said. “We’re
essentially training students to work on
the Forty-Niner.”
Classes such as feature writing, news writing
and investigative reporting will no longer
produce stories for the paper under the
new model.
Babcock said the changes will allow the
Forty-Niner to choose reporters from the
more than 34,000 students attending Cal
State Long Beach, instead of the approximately
150 students in the department.
“In the long run, we’re going to be a lot
better off,” said Chris Burnett, news-editorial
adviser of the Forty-Niner.
Mulligan said he fears students’ First Amendment
rights are being overlooked in the process.
He said reporters have been discouraged
from writing about recent activity in the
department, including its plans to regain
accreditation.
“To me, first and always as a journalist,
if you have a story and you don’t publish,
it’s a major disservice to your readership,”
Mulligan said. “The way to solve problems
is not to withhold information but to publish
information.”
Mulligan currently serves as publisher of
the Forty-Niner and chairman of the Forty-Niner
Publications Board.
Babcock said the Forty-Niner Publications
Board will be disbanded by next fall. A
transitional board to oversee Forty-Niner
publications and implement changes is currently
being assembled, he said.
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