Comm. Board needs vision

Comm. Board needs vision

Diverse, innovative media require funds

By Deanna Cherry

The Daily Bruin has made the claim that restructuring the
Communications Board will threaten student vision and voice ("Comm.
Board plan threatens independence," March 11). In fact, the entire
movement to restructure the board is grounded in serving students
and making their visions come to life. What the Daily Bruin does
not tell you is that the student vision and voice has been
suffering under the current board structure for years.

The Daily Bruin is the only form of student media which enjoys a
broad enough advertising base to support itself. The rest of
Student Media, including the yearbook (Bruin Life), the seven
newsmagazines (Nommo, La Gente, Pacific Ties, Ten Percent, Al
Talib, Together and Ha’Am) and the student radio station (KLA) have
never been self-supporting.

The newsmagazines, once largely supported by on-campus
advertisers whose budgets have since been slashed, are struggling
for advertising revenue. While we continue to pursue efforts to
build their advertising base, readership and listeners, the
non-Daily Bruin media need additional sources of support.

Furthermore, the current structure of the Communications Board
has made it impossible for Student Media to serve students whose
interests lie in television. While there are great opportunities to
develop a cable station for the campus, Student Media has lacked
the resources to develop it as a viable opportunity for
students.

Student Media’s vision is to serve the diversity of campus
community interests – including students interested in writing for
ethnic communities, mainstream journalism, radio, television and
online Internet media. If we remain dependent on advertisers as our
sole form of support, we will never be able to build a Student
Media which fulfills this vision.

Expanding the board will create a larger community of support
for the media. For example, over the past decade, Student Media has
struggled to make campus radio viable, and sadly we have failed.
Now, with Norm Pattiz – Chairman of Westwood One – sitting on the
Communications Board, there is, for the first time, an opportunity
to have a campus radio station worthy of UCLA and its students. His
presence represents a window into the Los Angeles media community,
and into the possibilities under the new board structure.

Adding professional members to the board will not infringe on
the independence of the media. This is a fear grounded in suspicion
and rhetoric. The Communications Board is explicitly banned from
such encroachment and was created, as the Daily Bruin accurately
states, to protect the independent voice of the students.
Chancellor Young was innovative in his creation of the
Communications Board, and its evolution is yet another step in
building creative opportunities for students to express their
unique voice.

Why does the Daily Bruin choose to stand in the way of expanding
student opportunity? We have tried to enroll its editor in chief,
Roxane Márquez, in our vision. Unfortunately, throughout the
year, she has refused to listen, and she remains opposed. That is
why we have a collective decision making process. So that the
community – not one individual’s – voice is heard.

I invite the campus community – staff, alumni, faculty and most
of all students who would benefit from the development of student
media, to come forward and support us. It is an investment from
which I know the campus will benefit for years to come.

Cherry is Communications Board chair.Comments to
[email protected]