Last week at the University of Georgia, several members of the student staff of the school paper the “Red & Black” walked out in protest after a board was given veto power over the stories published in their paper.

When instituting this board last April, the paper took control away from the students, effectively ending the Red and Black’s status as a student run journalistic publication. This had increased tensions over the summer, but the controversy came to a head when a board member drafted a memo that specifically mentioned the need to limit bad publicity and increase good publicity for UGA. In the draft, the board member asked the staff to try and find a balance of good and bad stories.

Good stories, he said, were information that students could use, covering events going on around campus, and things like that. He then said that bad stories were catching people or organizations doing bad things. He specifically described those “Bad” stories as journalism, before saying “If in question, have more GOOD than BAD.” Doing this shows that while this board member understands what real journalism is, he specifically calls for less of it, in favor of what amounts to puff pieces on behalf of the University. This position flies in the face of the main purpose of journalistic outlets in the United States.

The press in the United States is sometimes referred to as the fourth branch of government: if any of the other institutions are out of line or engaging in overreach, the press will call them on it, checking the power of the other branches.

Their ability to inform the voting public of their choices in an election in a fair and unbiased way is vital to any democratic form of government that wishes to function properly. “Good” stories do have a place in journalism, but never should they be included in a publication at the exclusion of more hard hitting investigative stories.

Student run media, and the school paper specifically, is the best way to educate students about the overreach of their administration, much like national press is with the federal government. Our unique focus on campus wide issues gives us a much better lens through which to examine the actions of the university, in a way that local press cannot.

We at the Daily Campus broke several big stories last year, several of which were not ones that made SMU look very good. But that isn’t our job, student media should not be simply reprinting the press releases sent out by the spin-doctors employed by the administration, they should be investigating what happens within the administration and keeping them honest.

The situation at UGA appears to have resolved itself, and the students’ solidarity against these changes paid off. The board overseeing the paper apologized for what they claimed was a misunderstanding in the memo, the board member who wrote the memo was removed from his position, and several of the student staffers who walked out intend to reapply for their jobs.

Hopefully the events at UGA serves as a reminder to all university papers not to try anything like this, as an attempt to increase good press could lead to a firestorm of bad press.