Dispute over ability to appoint student newspaper’s editor nears resolution

By Conor Shine

Saturday, June 16, 2012 | 2 a.m.

A dispute between UNLV’s student government and the Rebel Yell’s Advisory Board over who has the authority to choose the student newspaper’s top editor appears to be heading toward a resolution.

The Rebel Yell Advisory Board had chosen the paper’s editor-in-chief for the past 17 years. But last month, student body president Mark Ciavola told the board that his organization, which funds part of the paper’s budget through collected student fees, planned to appoint the editor under powers delegated in its constitution.

The news concerned many in the school’s journalism community, who worried that having the student government appoint the editor would threaten the Rebel Yell’s independence.

“It’s a peril for any news entity to derive its authority from a government entity,” journalism professor and Rebel Yell Advisory Board member Mary Hausch said in a May interview. “It’s an intolerable situation for student journalists to be placed in.”

The past month has seen the two sides seeking a mutually agreeable solution, and a round of meetings next week is expected to produce a series of resolutions that will fully separate the Rebel Yell from the Consolidated Students of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, the school’s student government.

Under the proposed framework, the Rebel Yell would receive its student fees funding, which this year totaled $111,000, from the Student Life Funding Committee instead of the student government.

The Student Life Funding Committee is an organization that funds proven programs at UNLV, like the Rebel Girls dance team or programs at the on-campus recreation center, Ciavola said.

“It keeps the paper funded with student dollars from a non-student government entity,” Ciavola said. “Our end goal was always for the Rebel Yell to be independent.”

The resolutions will need to be passed by the Rebel Yell’s board, the student government and the Student Life Funding Committee, which should happen by mid-July Ciavola said.

Further changes would also be needed to amend the student government’s constitution and Board of Regents policy, but those will be addressed in the fall, he said.

“I have never doubted for a moment that we would come to a conclusion that works for everyone,” Ciavola said.

Steve Sebelius, a Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist and Rebel Yell Advisory Board member for 14 years, said the resolutions should solve the conflict and prevent any further questions about who has authority over the newspaper.

“I think it will work perfectly,” he said. “The paper will remain independent. It will retain some student funding, but they’ll be separate from student government.”

For the first 40 years of its existence, UNLV’s Rebel Yell operated as a part of the student government. In 1995, the paper was made independent and the advisory board was created to oversee the Rebel Yell’s operations, even though the paper continued to receive about half of its funding from student fees.

When the advisory board was created, new policies gave it the authority to appoint the paper’s editor-in-chief, but similar wording was never removed from the student government constitution.

Revisions to state Board of Regents’ policies in 2009 did away with the section concerning the rights and authority of the Rebel Yell’s advisory board. Neither the board nor the student government were informed of the changes, and the section delegating power to the advisory board was never replaced, in what some characterized as an oversight.

Las Vegas Sun reporter Paul Takahashi serves as a member of the Rebel Yell Advisory Board, and reporter Rick Velotta serves as the paper’s paid adviser.