Gleaner update

By only

Wednesday February 13, 2008

Only has kept watch as alternative and independent media get squeezed out in Vancouver over and over again. That’s why we’re very pleased with the results at Langara.

The independent students’ newspaper, the Gleaner, was the subject of a referendum by the student council, which aimed to seize the paper’s separately-levied publications fee and bestow it upon a publication that marched in step with the junior NPAers that run the place. But the student council lost the vote and the Gleaner lives on.

Now, it’s not the greatest victory in the history of press freedom. BC law required that the council receive 75% support of voting students to gain access to the cash. They only received 58%. The Gleaner should take that as a kick-in-head from their readership about what they are printing and how they are demonstrating that they can take care of the students’ money.

But a win’s a win, and, as every former Langara student knows, the student council there would never be less than gracious in defeat so we would expect that the fees would be transferred quickly and that the Gleaner will be around for years to come.

If you go to Langara, we suggest that you join the paper and start writing some of that alternative media that you are always saying the world doesn’t have enough of.