Campus Protest of Publisher’s Ouster Planned

To the editor of the troubled student newspaper at Cal State L.A., the university’s decision last week to reassign--some would say demote--the paper’s paid publisher represents a serious assault on the freedom of the campus press.

“I think it’s a direct indication that (administrators) are going to attempt to seize editorial control of our student newspaper,” said Peggy Taormina, 46, the student editor-in-chief of the thrice-weekly University Times.

But the chairman of the school’s communications department, who last Wednesday ordered the reassignment of University Times Publisher Joan Zyda, 35, said reactions such as Taormina’s amount to paranoia.

“There’s been a very free expression of student opinion (in the newspaper),” said Keith Henning, the department chairman. “There’s been no attempt that I know of to interfere with any of that.”

Protests Sparked

Despite Henning’s reassurances, the removal of the publisher from her post as chief adviser to the 8,000-circulation newspaper has sparked protests from two labor organizations and prompted the paper’s editors to plan a protest “funeral march” on campus today. Zyda assumed the publisher’s post last September.

In addition to bringing in a journalism faculty member to act as adviser to the University Times, Henning last week told Zyda that she will no longer teach the course in newspaper production that has been her responsibility for the last three quarters.

Zyda, who worked as a reporter at the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, will remain a staff adviser to the newspaper, reporting to Prof. Evette Strothers. The move will not affect the $31,000-a-year salary Zyda was paid as publisher, but it will cost her the $2,000 a quarter she received for the teaching assignment, Zyda said.

The changes, Henning said, are intended to make the University Times a more integral part of the communication department’s academic program and to help administrators get a grip on the paper’s $200,000-a-year budget.

Journalism Program

At present, only about one-third of the students who contribute articles to the newspaper are enrolled in the journalism program. And only about $80,000 of the paper’s operating expense is recovered through advertising revenue. The rest is paid with a combination of university funds and student fees.

“It’s an expensive proposition,” Henning said of the paper. Cost concerns prompted officials in January to cut the publishing schedule from four to three papers a week, although Henning said he is not yet sure how much, if any, money has been saved.

Strothers, the new faculty adviser, will not act as a censor, Henning said. “The faculty member is not . . . approving or editing copy before it is printed except at the request of a student,” he explained. That, Henning said, is the job of the student editor. “The faculty member is to be a long-range adviser and mentor,” Henning said.

Ruth Y. Goldway, the university’s public affairs director, said that selecting a full-time faculty member as adviser to the newspaper demonstrates a strong commitment to the University Times and its editorial integrity.

‘Academic Freedom’

“Faculty members are professionals and have, in the context of the discipline in which they teach, academic freedom that is clearly spelled out. It’s more spelled out than (it is for) a staff member,” Goldway said.

Zyda’s reassignment is the latest incident in a series of confrontations among the paper’s student editors, university officials and officers of the student government, who have been at odds since last summer over issues such as the paper’s finances, its coverage of campus activities and its emphasis on what some have termed “negative news.”

“For the last six months, since Joan has taken over (as publisher), she has helped the students put out a quality newspaper,” said Francesca Alexander, an associate professor of sociology who is president of the campus chapter of the California Faculty Assn., to which Zyda belongs. Alexander noted that the University Times recently won five awards in a statewide collegiate press competition, the first bestowed on the paper in several years.

‘Too Much Negative News’

“But the administration, I believe, is concerned that the newspaper is printing news that is not necessarily always positive,” Alexander said. “I think that conceivably the administration is concerned that if we get too much negative news it might inhibit students from coming to our campus, and it might even prevent large donors from providing money to our campus.”

Alexander said her group plans to file a formal grievance with university officials today, charging that Zyda will be asked to help evaluate students in the newspaper course even though she will not be paid to teach the course.

Another union, the California State Employees Assn., has already filed a grievance, charging that a midyear evaluation of Zyda as publisher was improperly handled and that Henning gave her insufficient notice of the change in her job classification.

“What I see happening is . . . sort of a power play by the administration,” said Richard J. Houston, a university parking officer who is president of the local chapter of the CSEA.

‘Wants Total Control’

“I truly believe (Cal State L.A. President James Rosser) wants total control over everything that comes out of this university,” Houston added. “He has a public relations manager . . . and everything has to go through her. It’s colored . . . rosy, that everything’s wonderful.”

In recent months, the paper has given extensive coverage to problems that persist on campus in the aftermath of the Oct. 1 earthquake, which killed one student when a concrete slab from a parking structure fell on her.

The paper also ran a story criticizing the way the university development office handles gifts made to the school. It also reported that Rosser was for a time living on campus in a student dormitory.

“Since I’ve been here, I’ve heard remarks about the administration’s unhappiness with the content of the paper . . . and that they were blaming me for it,” Zyda said in an interview last week. “Not only blaming me, but they also thought that I personally was bringing a lot of bad PR to the university.”

She added: “It’s clear that the newspaper appears to be the last bastion of dissent on campus. . . . I think that if we ran 99% ‘positive’ stories that it would be the 1% . . . that would still gripe them so much that they would still want to make changes at the paper.”