Issue No 3 Wednesday 2nd November 1994 This Publication was brought to you by the Student Union of the School Of Oriental And African Studies, University of London. ONLY IBRARY SOAS SHOCKER Will another Occupation be needed?????? The Nature of Journalism Library Budget cut by 9 %. The Finance and General Purposes Committee has ignored the Working party and has blatantly ignored the needs of the students and the academic staff here at SOAS. Gerald Pickins and Spike Mull investigate the implications of such a cut for the student body. The budget given to the Library by the Finance and General Purposes Committe has been reduced from"505,000 to 455,000 this year. This amounts to a shocking cut in the budget of 9% in an already under resourced service here at the school. By this act the F+ GP have signalled to the student body and academics alike that they are prepared to fly in the face of the warning signals sent to them by last year’s occupation. Last year the occupation resulted in £24,000 being given to the Library for short-run iinvestment. Is occupation really the only way of generating greater investment into the library? I hope not.The Working Party was also set up to look at long term policy to improve the library as a resource for the students and academics at the school. Yet clearly such long term plans will have to be way laid for the reduction in the Library’s budget. The cut in the budget not only means that less books will be bought, but also means that less staff will be hired to carry out essential tasks. Several students have pointed out problems such as the reshelving of books in the reading room reserve and the increase in the length of queues. Of course the lack of books also implies that lending times will have to be reduced if students are to have equal acces to reading material. Such problems arguably arise out of the over crowding which has arisen due to the large intake of sudents. The large intake in itself is not a problem as long as resources at the school are increased proportionately. Yet clearly this has not happened where both students and academics alike have noticed the large problem of overcrowding at the school. While some of this will be alleviated by the Brunei building now in construction opposite the school, it seems that the school is not prepared to help the librarian maintain the standard of what is without doubt the most important of the school’s assets. The Library committee itself found the cut in the budget alarming. It decided to send a stem rebutal to the Finance and General Purposes Committee. The Librarian commented that the cut will force them into the uncomfortable position of having to prioritise the budget. While books for taught courses will not be threatened, it seem grossly unfair for the F+GP to put a straight jacket on the Library when it is under enough strain to meet student needs. In a letter to the SU the director made the following comment, “The reduced allocation has been decided following the national wage settlement for universities.” The SU does not accept this argument. So there has been an increase in wages for academics. This does not mean that there has to be a cut in the library’s budget. What is the point of having rich academics if they have nothing to read? Short of occupation however it seems that little will be done to reverse the decision. The occupation of the Library last year was made essentially over the lack of existing rescources in the library. This year things are much the same. Will students occupy again? In looking at the situation it would seem that an occupation of the Library will be necessary, as this is the only system that appears to work. The occupation brought an extra £24,000 to the Library in the matter of a few weeks. That would solve the problems of both the Students and the Library. The library would recieve its extra cash, and the Students their extra books. The Loser? Well that would be the School Finance department. But one could hardly consider an improvement in the main service this school provides as a loss. Instead the loss will be one of pride. But such a loss will seem like nothing compared to the lack of respectability which will occur to this school as a centre of learning if it does not expand its facilities in line with the increase in students over the last few years. Haiti seems to be an excellent occasion for the lefties and academics to pick upon the media, “once more not able to provide the public with a proper picture I do not contest such observations (because they are mainly correct) but I fear that by generalising the part played by the media in international politics, one makes exactly the same mistake that one accuses the media of: a lack of differentiation. Let it be clear that I do not attempt to analyse the relationship between journalism and politics in depth, (there is loads of literature that does this a lot better), but I would like to make at least some general remarks as a reaction to the sloganesque way in which the media are pictured, and therefore I take the risk of generalising myself. As I argued in the article on press coverage in Rwanda, the media are part of a bigger commercial system; they need to sell in the first place and let capital flow through the cycle of advertising and purchase. We should also bear in mind that journalists and especially mass media do not only have to direct themselves at an academically educated elite. There is the influence of modem communication technologies that make information flow a lot faster. Papers tend to sell these days “old news” because we have seen it all on TV the night before. And to counter another far too often heard argument, I’d like to mention a point that Feargel Keane (BBC correspondent in South Africa) made very clear in his speech at SOAS. There is indeed this tendency of the media to turn away from events as soon as they lose their dramatic nature. Press interest for South Africa is decreasing already! But this has just as much to do with the perverted nature for drama of the human race than with the commercial press. All this has obvious implications for the information task of the journalist. As a result the public ends up with a rather fragmented view of the world, and often a disinforming one. Division of Labour I believe reproaching the journalist is a bit easy. You cannot expect a journalist to deliver all the “facts” and provide the “Cambridge History” of the country with it! If academics claim to have far better insight in international politics than the average journalist: publish, write, react... There are alternative channels through which one can give and get this so called background information. So why couldn’t there be a sort of division of labour between academics and journalists. Academics tend to be far too often in their ivory towers or have heavy theoritical discussions over coffee but do not come out. And maybe there is a positive tendency already. It was surprising how in France there was indeed a “big” reaction of established academics on the French intervention in Rwanda, maybe not in the big selling papers but their voice was heard. Academic snobbism Even though we might not be given the so called background information, media coverage teaches us a lot indirectly. Media coverage in Somalia was very different from Haiti, the Gulf or even Rwanda and had different implications. The majority of the public had a good laugh when the American Marines landed on the Somalian shores (in prime time!) blinded by the spots of the press. It seems a lot of people managed to see through it. In the way the landing in Somalia was covered one could learn a lot about the motives of the American government. Press coverage in Rwanda taught us something about the relationship between media and aid et cetera. Get out of the mass media what you can and look for alternative information channels if you can’t get enough. And if anyone feels the need to add something, there still is a Student Newspaper. So giving some background information on Haiti is a very good initiative but do not pretend to give us the sole explanatory key to an event and justify your writings by saying that the media totally failed to give any information. Stop this academic snobbism towards journalism. Saskia Van Hoy weghen Due to the open editorial policy of this paper, the Student Union, SOAS, does in no way condone or condemn any opinion herein expressed, unless explicitly stated. The views expressed are entirely the views of the individual authors and contributors.