The commissioner of communications has a fair amount of power to affect the state of print media on campus. This year’s contenders, French international student Nicanor Madueno (Tritons United!) and KSDT General Manager Leo Bondar (Student Voice!), have very different backgrounds but share many of the same priorities.
Madueno, however, has a fresh perspective that we think will invigorate the office. He proudly describes himself as “always a free speech advocate” — not surprising, given his slate’s blanket promise to promote and protect free speech. But in Madueno’s case, the promise has teeth. He insists on staying content-neutral when deciding funding for publications, and advocates more equanimity when funding publications with similar page counts and frequency of publication.
Decrying the current funding formula for media organizations as unfair, Madueno promises to make sure no publications find favoritism in his office based on a historical record of high production quality.
He expressed interest in seeing more diversity among on-campus publications, and a more equal way of funding publications is likely to encourage new publications to sprout up.
He is opposed to forcing on-campus publications to defray some of their publishing costs by meeting an ad quota. Publications should be free to sell ads if they wish, he said, but it shouldn’t be a requirement.
We were especially happy that he endorses publishing a schedule online that would report the issuing of each campus publication. This would increase readership, decrease confusion, and help hold publications accountable to their production.
Madueno also advocated changing the media charter so publications would have to publish only once a quarter to qualify for funding. This would free up funds so lesser-funded or new publications would have the money they need; on the other hand, it might create problems for publications that have been publishing twice a quarter (as the media charter currently stipulates) and want to continue that pace. Either way, we are enthusiastic about Madueno’s willingness to examine long-standing rules that may not make sense anymore.
His opponent, Leo Bondar, is a relatively strong candidate but lacks Madueno’s fire and fresh ideas. Leo also emphasized content-neutrality when making funding decisions, and funding all campus publications equally. He agreed with Madueno that ad quotas are unnecessary. Bondar has a firm grounding in KSDT, and would bring a lot of improvements to that particular area. He might be less strong, and less concerned, about other forms of media on campus, however.
We believe Madueno’s outsider perspectives will bring a new perspective to this office.
