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Student paper in dispute at WSU

BY SUZANNE PEREZ TOBIAS

The Wichita Eagle

Wichita State University's student newspaper is preparing for a First Amendment battle with the university over what it says is illegal censorship.

A top university official, meanwhile, says his concern with the Sunflower isn't free speech, but sloppy journalism.

"Students have just reached a point where they're getting fed up with the Sunflower in terms of how articles are being published," said Ron Kopita, vice president for campus life and university relations.

Kopita, as chairman of the student fees committee, recently appointed a task force to review the newspaper's operations and recommend improvements. It would not review content before it is published, he said.

The Sunflower gets $155,000 a year -- about half its annual budget -- from student fees. The rest comes from advertising.

Next year's student fees budget, which awaits approval from WSU president Don Beggs, says the Sunflower won't get funding until the task force's mission is complete.

And that, say college press advocates, is a violation of the newspaper's rights.

Universities can't directly censor student publications, said Frank LoMonte, executive director of the Student Press Law Center in Washington, D.C., "so they do the next best thing."

"They take away funding, or they take away leadership, or they threaten to impose new layers of review.... The formation of this ad hoc committee (at WSU) looks to be directly related to displeasure with the content of the newspaper, and that is the ultimate slippery slope."

Even when universities fund a student newspaper or radio station, LoMonte explained, the First Amendment limits a school's ability to censor.

Courts have prohibited schools from limiting circulation, requiring pre-publication review, removing objectionable content and reducing financial support.

Todd Vogts, editor of the Sunflower, said the review clause in the budget request "is a form of soft censorship."

Vogts, 21, a communication major and former intern at The Eagle, said he doesn't mind criticism of the newspaper's practices.

In a document sent to the Sunflower last month, the committee cited as concerns: inaccurate reporting, one-sided stories, reporters not attending events they wrote about, misquoting, presenting opinion pieces as news stories and lifting quotes from the Internet.

"Nobody's infallible," Vogts said. "We do our best down here to ensure accuracy and quality, and when we make mistakes we make sure and run a correction the next day."

College newspapers are managed and published differently, depending on the school, LoMonte said. Some, such as the University Daily Kansan in Lawrence, are so-called "lab papers" for large journalism departments.

Others, including the Sunflower, are more extracurricular and operate without direct oversight from journalism faculty.

A student publications board -- made up of faculty, student government and newspaper representatives -- meets several times a year to address concerns about the Sunflower.

Ronda Voorhis, an adjunct lecturer for WSU's Elliott School of Communication, earns $2,500 a semester as the newspaper's part-time faculty adviser. She offers advice and guidance to student journalists, she said, but does not edit stories or oversee operations. To do so would overstep her authority, said Voorhis, who also works part-time at The Eagle.

Faculty members exercising veto power over student work could open the university to lawsuits over the newspaper's content, she added. "I do my job by keeping out of the way."

The task force charged with reviewing the Sunflower won't meet until May. It includes administrators, journalism faculty and two student-government representatives. Students from the newspaper declined to join the group, Kopita said.

Les Anderson, assistant director of the Elliott School and a former faculty adviser for the Sunflower, will serve on the task force. He said recent developments indicate "a lack of understanding" by some at the university.

"What you don't want is for a student paper to become the administrative voice," he said.

LoMonte, of the Student Press Law Center, said his group is prepared to help the Sunflower staff fight its case -- possibly in court.

"There's got to be a brick wall between the state and the newspaper's content," he said. "What's being proposed at the Sunflower would drive a truck-size hole through that wall."

Reach Suzanne Perez Tobias at 316-268-6567 or stobias@wichitaeagle.com.