Good reporting work…and a dash of obfuscation

Some good reporting work by Kelley Ebbels on the new Minerva “online opt-out system” with the notion — supported by Jake Itzkowitz and Imad Baracke — that opting out of fees for SSMU clubs should be less easy because too many headstrong students might point, click and save. Ebbels doesn’t spell out this notion in her article, which would put all the cards on the table, an important part of analysis in good journalism.

Instead, the writer seems to be on the side of the student clubs that are fearing for their budgets. She uses the word “unilateral” in the first line, That’s more like a description you would build support for, not begin the article with, as if there is no alternative case to be made.

Ebbels quotes QPIRG sympathetically, writing, “But QPIRG agreed the decision encroaches upon the organization’s autonomy.” Unfortunately, no one gives that opinion prior to QPIRG in the article. The context of her article doesn’t indicate who shares the opinion that QPIRG is agreeing with. Perhaps Ebbels, since she has jumped the gun.

Ebbels wants to imply that the University is co-opting other parties’ rights in a representational system. But clubs don’t have democratic rights; their members do — and it is not obvious in what situations those members have rights over other people’s money.

Still, the writer accurately depicts the budget threat to student groups, while allowing the University administration to sound more democratic here—”greater transparency and more timely service [for each student]” — than the rest of the voices. (Perhaps the administration is gleeful that they could do damage to a few student clubs that have been like gnats in their ear.)

It bears more thinking whether this is a case of a “democracy too fast” argument that the Daily is making to support Gorilla Composting, QPIRG, etc. without actually admitting that the Daily wants in this case to put a bridle on extending rights to each student of the University. (Above all, the paper has to maintain its “pro-democratic face”… even if they’re supporting GA policies which preclude referendum votes open to the whole undergraduate community.)