As the undergraduate student government reporter for The State News, I have never been given the opportunity to write in first person about my news beat. My opinion is never clearly expressed in my stories, as that wouldn't be professional. So, I will take these next few minutes to throw something out there that has been bugging me for a while now.
The Associated Students of Michigan State University's Student Assembly meet once every two weeks. I attend these meetings as a reporter, looking on to a group of people that could be considered my peers, seeing as we are all within the same age range, give or take a year. At the first meeting, members of the funding and programming committees were elected. However, I found out that watching these positions fill up made me feel as if I were undergoing a root canal as opposed to watching an election. It was irritating, to say the least.
"Why?" you probably ask yourself.
As some of you may know, ASMSU was under quite a bit of heat last semester, as members of the Assembly ran for the hills, leaving their positions when things got tough. During a controversial meeting, the minutes were supposedly "lost" a few days later. Then, late in the semester, a new group of elected officials settled in, booting most of the former officials out of their chairs. New group, new attitude...right?
No.
The representatives from the different colleges and organizations that sit on ASMSU's Student Assembly board don't take it seriously, in my opinion. Although it is still early, I witnessed students nominating themselves for programming board positions, and then when they were asked, "Do you accept your own nomination," they would say, "No way!" And then they would all laugh as if it were one of the funniest jokes of all time. It was then that I realized why ASMSU meetings supposedly take more than four or five hours. Just about every representative had to be nominated for a position in order for them to fill eight spots or so. Many would be nominated and turn it down, saying they don't have the time or they don't want to do it. It was like pulling teeth. That's the best way to describe it.
I am concerned, as an MSU student, that our own student government isn't taking all of this completely seriously. I could be wrong, because it is so early in the year, as I said earlier. But I am really looking forward to them proving me wrong, because I hate being a reporter/writer who is forced to write about controversial topics simply because a student government who is given $1.3 million dollars can't do something without people thinking it's shady.
And then that whole Nigel Scarlett thing happened. The State News found out that he plead guilty for aggravated assault over "a piece of garbage." Then we found out he spent about five days in jail on a previous charge. Members of ASMSU were questioning The State News' respectability, saying it was unfair to put something like that on the front page, simply because he was a member of ASMSU. Some thought it was ridiculous, because it's just like anyone else getting in trouble. Is it though?
So, JRN300, I ask you: Is it the same as anyone getting in trouble? Or when its the vice chairperson for external affairs of a student government that supposedly represents you, does it mean a little bit more? Isn't that almost like a congressman or White House official being in the news? It compares to that a little bit, I think.
Give me your opinion.
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4 comments:
Jesus, what a shabby group of scabs. This was an awesome commentary, Sean, and I appreciate getting to hear it. Those fools are in charge of $1.3 million??? Well, George Bush is in charge of two countries - par for the course I suppose.
The lawyers over at ASMSU do help out with legal advice - but they're also grown professionals.
Simply put, I think differently of ASMSU now.
Putting high profile figures on the front page of any publication is a fact of life. Granted, how "high profile" a person may be is completely relative, but at a university such as Michigan State, student governement participants should pretty much be considered the equivilant of George Bush and Condoleezza Rice (although way younger and more attractive). The fact that these people aren't taking their positions seriously concerns me. How much am I paying in tuition a year? Oh yeah, way too much. Sitting around and wasting the $1.3 million (!) they're getting from the state shows me that I'm over-paying in tuition so that these fools can have a huge inflated budget for the year.
$1.3 million!!!! That is just insulting, I can't even dream of wasting half that much and they are wasting $1.3 million??? The worst part is, there are some student organizations that can barely get $100 and it sounds as if they do more than our own government board and they have the nerve to waste money...a little shameful if you ask me. As far as the Nigel story, I'm ashamed to say I didn't read that story when it first came out, but I kind of didn't have to because my friends ended up telling me about it. They personally know Nigel so when they read the story they were livid. They asked me, why would we write that? The best response I had for them was..it was newsworthy. And I'm not unsympathetic to what happened but news writers have jobs as well and it is to find the best story. An elected official "supposedly" beating someone up is great news, just like when the V.P. used vulgar language. People of power making mistakes is great for the news. Of course I had no friends for like a week. If he had just been your average student, no extracurriculars to represent, it might not have even been in the newspaper, but the job is to report whats happening at MSU and that is simply what happened.
A screwup by an official is always bigger news than a screwup by Joe Sixpack.
It's bigger news because more people care. ASMSU sounds like a zoo.
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