Hello — Goodbye ... take your pick
(as printed in CHAFF #24 2011)
CHAFF has been in production since 1934, for the majority of that time as a weekly publication. (There was a notable break between 1936 and 1947, when publication was understandably suspended for fear of the terrible ends to which Hitler might put in-depth information on where Dairy Systems lecturers liked to park their bikes during student-Faculty cricket matches.)
The issue you are holding may well be the last of them, the end of that inky, rustling line.
Though the tone, look and politics of the paper have gone through continuous changes over the years, technological advances aside, the practical process of making it has changed amazingly little. And though CHAFF, like any publication, has risen and dipped in readership, relevance and style throughout the years, the key reasons for its existence – why it’s important that it exists – remain unaltered.* Free and independent student comment, criticism and opinion. The membership being free to write – within certain legal and ethical boundaries – on their own interests, in their own language, no matter how critical of University or Government, without threat of censorship. A reflection of student life as seen by students, not Marketing Teams or Branding Managers.
* As a record of student, campus and social life of the time. Photospreads, news stories, events coverage, articles about student achievement; fostering a local sense of community and connection to a particular place and year. CHAFF also has a largely unacknowledged value as a historical reference; both of personal and larger societal changes.
* Independent and autonomous news coverage and editorial policy. If Massey decides to close enrolments early, or increase fees midway through a year – or if the Student Association starts playing fast and loose with its funding – there must be a student magazine to comment and question; those stories are not going to be in the Manawatu Standard or Dominion Post. And the reporters and Editors of that magazine must have the right to research and compose the news stories that they wish to see published; they must not be in a position to be coerced, repositioned or toned down by shareholders, advertisers or “Advisory Boards”. They must have no masters but the student body and their own judgement.
These are key contributions to student life that CHAFF has made and will be needed to make again - in fact, under VSM and three more years of National, what a regular and regional news source offers students is more critical than ever. Those functions cannot be provided by a three-campus monthly magazine designed as much to promote Massey – sorry, “student culture” - as to represent student interests. What sense of flavour, place, fun or debate can survive in that format?
What we have been told, over and over, is that without Compulsory Membership, the survival of MUSA Services depends on what Massey is willing to pay for. This has been used as a catch-all justification to avoid answering questions and disclose intentions. I also do not think it is entirely true.
MUSA committed this year to building a new block of flats in town that will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. They will say, and justifiably, that they are investing in the future solvency of the Association. But why have an Association when it cannot serve any of its traditional functions? What point having money in the bank when you can’t put on an event or publish a newspaper without considering the interests of the University? Why invest in longevity when you cannot guarantee effective student representation?
I’m not an accountant; I’m barely numerically literate. But I am, I think, competent enough to look at expenditure and income columns. We’re not talking hundreds of thousands in external costs here. CHAFF is not so much of a lost cause that there’s no point in even talking about saving it.
Though it would be difficult, and necessarily involve much change, it is definitely within the realms of possibility that with a little energy and effort, something like CHAFF can be preserved for future generations of Massey students. So why hasn’t MUSA apparently looked seriously into doing so?
The key things to think about aren’t the size of the paper, or the weekly-ness of it, or even the name. The paramount consideration has to be whether the core functions I listed above still have merit – and, if so, how whatever publication the students are paying for will be able to serve those functions.
The first and most obvious option is, as was discussed in the Standard earlier this year, moving CHAFF online. This has its benefits in terms of access and cost; on the other hand, it limits advertising revenue and loses a certain credibility as a news source (yes, I realize I just used the word “credibility” in relation to CHAFF. I’m scared too). Most importantly, as long as advertising could support an Editor and (full-time) Journalist/Reporter you would still have sufficient resources to provide an acceptable standard of student news and criticism without losing independence to Massey funding.
The second option, on the basis of my admittedly rough calculation, is to remain in print but on a reduced scale, producing a larger fortnightly issue instead of the current 28-page weekly one. Despite the increase in page count, this would effectively cut half the printing budget and allow more time for the “higher quality” publication of which Student Presidents are so keen.
The advertising budget for CHAFF has been set, for the last four years, at around one hundred thousand dollars. By reducing the frequency and circulation as proposed above, and cutting staffing down in semester breaks and over summer, it should be possible to bring in a regular, decently-sized, independent student newspaper for within twenty to thirty thousand above the income gained from advertising.
These are the very rough projections of a gin-pickled BA graduate. It may not be possible in practice to make those numbers work – but surely it’s close enough to warrant just discussing?
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In 1970, an Editorial Committee which included my father produced the cover, which the lay-out of this column pays homage to/rips off shamelessly, in which they put to MUSA a choice either to endorse that team or see their resignation. It was, as my father says, on an “obscure point of principle”, but they were willing to practice according to that principle. MUSA would not budge; the team walked.
Forty two years later, I am asking MUSA to make a similar choice. The key difference is there is no ultimatum. If one had any chance of success, of the continuation a weekly, Palmy-based student newspaper, then I’d have no hesitation in making it. I think CHAFF is important, for its place in history and the role it may play in the future, even if not for today. I think it is worth fighting for.
VSM is not an archaic squabble about whether or not the Alpine Club can source its own advertising; it’s a complete change to the way in which MUSA operates. I understand that; I sympathesize with the situation ACT has placed us in. So what I ask of MUSA in making this choice is that they ensure all alternatives have been explored, and genuine consideration given to how a regular, local paper might be retained.
No such indication has been given. Maybe these discussions have taken place; but I can say categorically that if they did they did not include the Editor and Department Manager of the publication which’s future was being planned. This, plus the fact that little to no enthusiasm for CHAFF has been demonstrated by anyone in the Association (outside of CHAFF and members of Control) this year, and the undiscussed alternatives to the “let’s just get Magneto delivered here too” plan, leads me to conclude that it is not CHAFF in which they have so little interest: it is the CHAFF produced by the current team, which they have mistakenly confused as the same thing. Either that or they do not understand CHAFF’s key functions or recognize their value.
If it is the former, I am willing to publically make the following offer: if MUSA might be willing – if the deals have not yet been made - to produce a student magazine, be it A4 and fornightly or A3 and weekly, called whatever they want to call it, based in Palmerston North and free of editorial intervention from the Association or the University, and if they’re only not willing to do so because of the fact that I would be editing it:
I am willing to resign should the continuation of that kind of student newspaper be contingent upon my resignation.
Obviously, I am happy for that not to be the case. I’m not saying it necessarily is. I think the boys and I have done a great job over the past five years. I would like to think my bosses here at MUSA think so too, even a little bit, and my real bosses down on concourse. But if it is made clear to me that CHAFF would definitely continue if I was not a part of it, then in that situation, and in that situation only, I would have no reservation in walking away.
I do not think of myself as CHAFF – I have spent the week surrounded by dusty old issues seeing firsthand what CHAFF is: a great and true ongoing record, a continuing debate, a surprisingly comprehensive Veterinary manual. If others have, or do, mistake William Muirhead and CHAFF as the same thing, and if that is why they are not willing to try and save it, then that is my great failure.
I would be willing to do anything within my power to rectify it.
Goodbye for 2011, CHAFF. I’ve been writing for you since 2000 and editing you since 2007, and I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this but… I fucking love you, CHAFF. I fucking love you.
Take care, all of you, and very sincere good wishes for your exams and afterwards.
William Muirhead
