FOR SUBMISSION TO

SECRETARY OF STATE/TEXAS REGISTER DIVISION

DATE OF SUBMISSION: 01/25/2008

NAME OF AGENCY: The University of Texas System

COMMITTEE: The University of Texas at Austin - Texas Student Media (TSM)

DATE OF MEETING: 02/08/2008

TIME OF MEETING: 2:00 PM

ROOM, BUILDING, & STREET LOCATION: Room 203, Campus Club, 405 West 25th Street

CITY: Austin

IF EMERGENCY MEETING, REASON:

ORIGINAL MEETING TRD# (if applicable):

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION OBTAINED FROM: Kathy Lawrence, 2500 Whitis Avenue, Austin, Texas 78712 Telephone: 512/471-1084, Fax: 512/232-5793, Email: kathyl@mail.utexas.edu

BOARD AGENDA:

I. 2:00 p.m., Convene in Open Session for Meeting of the Texas Student Media (TSM) Executive Committee

A. Monthly Financial Report (Merry Tillman, Financial Director)

B. Discussion concerning the Texan payroll for the spring semester.

C. Follow-up discussion about the equipment needs for TSM

D. Follow-up discussion regarding the Declaration of Trust

II. 3:00 p.m., Recess Executive Committee meeting and Convene in Open Session for the TSM Board of Operating Trustees Meeting

A. Discussion and appropriate action regarding the November 16, 2007 and the January 18, 2008 TSM Board Minutes

B. Executive Committee Report (Wanda Cash, Committee Chair)

C. Discussion and appropriate action concerning the election of a new TSM Board of Trustees Vice President

D. Reports from the Director and the Student Managers

E. Discussion and appropriate action regarding old business.

1. Discussion and appropriate action regarding the equipment needs of TSM.

2. Discussion and appropriate action regarding the Declaration of Trust.

F. Discussion and appropriate action regarding new business.

1. Certification for TSM Board Positions Places 1, 2, 3, and 4, and certification for the Daily Texan Editor position.

2. Recess to Executive Session pursuant to Texas Government Code, Chapter 551 for discussion of certification of applicants

- Personnel Matters Relating to Appointment, Employment, Evaluation, Assignment, Duties, Discipline, or Dismissal of Officers or Employees - Section 551.074

a. U. T. System: Discussion regarding individual personnel matters relating to appointment, employment, evaluation, compensation, assignment, and duties of TSM Board Positions Places 1, 2, 3, and 4, and for the Daily Texan Editor position

3. Reconvene in Open Session to consider action on Executive Session items.

4. Discussion and appropriate action regarding the TSM Board Meeting schedule.

5. KVRX Presentation (Adviser Mary Baird-Wilcock)

III. Adjourn

Persons interested in the meeting and desiring communication or other special accommodations should contact the Board Office at least two working days prior to the meeting. The Board Office may be contacted by phone at (512) 499-4402; by fax at (512) 499-4425; or by email at bor@utsystem.edu. The Board Office is open Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., excluding national holidays. Every reasonable effort will be made to accommodate special needs. Requests may be delivered or mailed to: The Office of the Board of Regents, 201 West Seventh Street, Suite 820, Austin, Texas 78701-2981 or submitted electronically to bor@utsystem.edu.

CERTIFICATION: I certify that I have reviewed this document and that it conforms to all applicable Texas Register filing requirements.

__________________________________________

Francie A. Frederick

General Counsel to the Board of Regents

The University of Texas System

512/499-4402

Texas Student Media

Board of Operating Trustees Meeting

Campus Club, 405 W. 25^th Street, Room 203

February 8, 2008

Agenda

I. 2:00 p.m., Convene in Open Session for Meeting of the Texas Student Media (TSM) Executive Committee

A. Monthly Financial Report (Merry Tillman, Financial Director)

B. Discussion concerning the Texan payroll for the spring semester.

C. Follow-up discussion about the equipment needs for TSM

D. Follow-up discussion regarding the Declaration of Trust

II. 3:00 p.m., Recess Executive Committee meeting and Convene in Open Session for the TSM Board of Operating Trustees Meeting

A. Discussion and appropriate action regarding the November 16, 2007 and the January 18, 2008 TSM Board Minutes

B. Executive Committee Report (Wanda Cash, Committee Chair)

C. Discussion and appropriate action concerning the election of a new TSM Board of Trustees Vice President

D. Reports from the Director and the Student Managers

E. Discussion and appropriate action regarding old business.

1. Discussion and appropriate action regarding the equipment needs of TSM.

2. Discussion and appropriate action regarding the Declaration of Trust.

F. Discussion and appropriate action regarding new business.

1. Certification for TSM Board Positions Places 1, 2, 3, and 4, and certification for the Daily Texan Editor position.

2. Recess to Executive Session pursuant to Texas Government Code, Chapter 551 for discussion of certification of applicants:

Personnel Matters Relating to Appointment, Employment, Evaluation, Assignment, Duties, Discipline, or Dismissal of Officers or Employees - Section 551.074

3. Reconvene in Open Session to consider action on Executive Session items.

4. Discussion and appropriate action regarding the TSM Board Meeting schedule.

5. KVRX Presentation (Adviser Mary Baird-Wilcock)

III. Adjourn

Texas Student Media

Board of Operating Trustees

November 16, 2007

Voting members present: Brandon Chicotsky, Kendra Newton, Emily Scheinfeld, Zachary Warmbrodt, Cindy T. Brummer, Wanda Garner Cash, Kristie J. Loescher, Lisa Dobias, W. Gardner Selby, Benjamin T. Trotter, Sara Ostrosky

Voting members absent:

Non-voting members present: Kathy Lawrence, Sidd Sinha, Claire Harlin, Jackie Stone, Veronica Hansen, Eleanor Bartosh

Non-voting members absent: Alexander Hunt, Nicholas Chu, Stephanie Bonham, Robert Vargas

Professional staff present: Jack Simons, Richard Finnell, John Foxworth, Dan Knight, Wayne Roche, Frank Serpas, Tim Serpas, Merry Tillman, Jalah Briedwell, Mary Baird-Wilcock,

Guests: Robert Kleeman, Adrienne Lee, Gabrielle Munoz, Mark Estrada, Amanda DeBard, Julio Trujillo, Mallory DeWitt, Brad Corbett, Carter Goss

TSM Board President Zachary Warmbrodt called the meeting to order at 3:06 p.m.

I. Business

With a motion by Cash and a second by Scheinfeld, the October minutes and corrected September minutes were accepted.

Lawrence had no news to report on the progress of the Declaration of Trust. Responding to questions by Chicotsky, she said that related legal fees were minor and that there would be no request made to the Student Services Budget Committee for reimbursement of legal fees this year.

For the Elections Committee, Cash, Loescher, Scheinfeld and Ostrostky volunteered to serve. Lawrence said she would let them know when they would need to begin meeting.

II. Student Manager Reports

Bartosh added to her report that post cards about the senior portraits had been sent out, also encouraging parents to order the book as a holiday gift for their graduating senior.

Hansen reported that the Travesty’s comedy show was standing room only.

A fire alarm sounded at 3:21 p.m., and the building was evacuated. The meeting resumed at 3:29 p.m.

Expanding on her written comments about College Publisher, Stone informed the Board that the Texan had dropped out of CP’s top five sites and that she was receiving poor feedback from readers. With little communication from CP, Selby wanted to know what alternatives and back-up plans there were, and Chicotsky wanted to know what the conditions would be for breach of contract. Roche reported that there would be a three-month process to totally end the contract.

The Board directed Lawrence to report on the situation at the next meeting. With a motion by Loescher, the Board authorized Lawrence to spend up to $20,000 for an alternate system should it be needed.

III. Managing Editor Selection

Adrienne Lee and Robert Kleeman presented themselves as candidates for Daily Texan Managing Editor for the Spring 2007 semester. Both answered questions from the board. Lee required a waiver for the GPA requirement and said she would complete J360 during her term as managing editor; Kleeman’s application, as presented, was incomplete. Both had passed the adviser-administered media law exam before coming before the board.

At 4:19 p.m. the Board went into closed session so Texan staffers could present their candid opinions on the candidates. They returned to open session at 4:49 p.m.

Scheinfeld moved to waive the GPA requirement and Loescher moved to waive the J360 requirement. Both motions were approved, and the board unanimously selected Adrienne as managing editor for the spring term.

The meeting adjourned at 4:50 p.m.

Texas Student Media

Board of Operating Trustees

January 18, 2008

Voting members present: Kendra Newton, Emily Scheinfeld, Zachary Warmbrodt, Cindy T. Brummer, , Kristie J. Loescher, W. Gardner Selby, Benjamin T. Trotter, Sara Ostrosky

Voting members absent: Wanda G. Cash, Lisa Dobias

Non-voting members present: Kathy Lawrence, Sidd Sinha, Claire Harlin, Adrienne Lee, Veronica Hansen, Eleanor Bartosh, Stephanie Bonham

Non-voting members absent: Alexander Hunt, Nicholas Chu, Robert Vargas, Jalah Briedwell

Professional staff present: Jack Simons, Richard Finnell, John Foxworth, Dan Knight, Wayne Roche, Frank Serpas, Tim Serpas, Merry Tillman, Mary Baird-Wilcock,

Guests: Board candidates Nikki Mouton and Bonnie Moon, Colin Lowenberg, Jennifer Hammat

TSM Board President Zachary Warmbrodt called the meeting to order at 3:07 p.m.

I. Minutes

Due to concerns with the wording of the managing editor selection discussion, Loescher moved with a second by Brummer to delay the adoption of the November minutes.

II. Executive Committee and Director Reports

The Executive Committee reported that the need for several items of new equipment will be presented in coming months, as the staff determines which items are most critically needed and how much expense the budget can withstand. The items include the purchase of a new vehicles, the need for new computer-to-plate equipment, as well as office upgrades and new software.

In response to Newton asking about the progress on meeting with other parts of campus, Lawrence reported that she had been meeting with academic department representatives and talking about the opportunities and potential relationships TSM could provide to them and their students.

Baird-Wilcock reported that she was still waiting on official dates from KOOP on their estimate of how long they’d be off the air. She assured the Board that KVRX was complying with the FCC in all ways related to the signal they share with KOOP.

The Director’s report referenced the readership survey that was recently completed, generating a number of questions for Roche. On Selby’s question as to its reliability, Roche replied that there were 171 responses and that the creator of the survey has found that once it reaches 100, the reliability is assured. Loescher asked about changes that had been or would be made, and Roche replied that they had already changed the way sales presentations were made as they could cite specific statistics about which sorts of products were reached by which media.

Regarding the new video cameras for the Texan, Foxworth assured the Board that the multimedia editor for the paper had sufficient skill to properly train her staff with the equipment.

III. Student Reports

Adding to his written report Sinha said that there had been at least one new TSTV program every day of the semester so far.

Bartosh reported that the first deadline had been completed, the cover design is finished, and she has been working on staffing and marketing issues.

Brummer had questions for Harlin regarding “how to get people to pay for something” from her written report. Harlin clarified that she was talking about advertisers and not a subscription service for the online version.

Server problems at College Publisher were to blame for frequent crashes of The Daily Texan Online during the fall. CP is continuing to address those and also will be rolling out new software later in the spring. Lawrence said we will continue to monitor the situation, but since changing to a new system will be costly and time consuming, we don’t want to make a change lightly.

IV. Board Member Replacement

Mouton and Moon presented themselves to the Board for questioning. Mouton reported that she had sufficient time to devote to Board business and that she had the goal of making TSM relevant to students. Moon said that she had worked on the Communication Council and is interning at KVUE and understands how to devote part of her time to other activities.

The Board went into closed session to discuss the candidates at 4:03 p.m. and returned to open session at 4:11 p.m.

With a motion by Loescher and a second by Selby, the Board selected Moon to fill Chicotsky’s seat through to its expiration. The Board encouraged Mouton to run for one of the seats coming open in the spring election.

V. Sales and Marketing Presentation

Roche made his PowerPoint presentation about the activities of the sales and marketing section of TSM. He emphasized the bundling of media units when selling ad space and branding TSM with the “Inside your world” slogan. The effort has worked successfully for TSM entities, as evidenced by data in the slides.

With a motion by Selby and a second by Loescher, the meeting adjourned at 4:34 p.m.

TO: TSM Board of Operating Trustees

FR: Kathy Lawrence

DATE: January 30, 2008

RE: Declaration loose ends

I wanted to call your attention to the Schedules that are to be a part of the Declaration of Trust. I am attaching those as they exist today. I think we are close to an agreement from the UT administration on these, but it hasn’t yet occurred. I am bringing these to your attention in the event you see anything that should be changed or addressed.

In addition, I am attaching the Services Agreement, which this board enacted last April and which expires next August. To my knowledge, this has not been acted upon by the administration. It was forwarded as part of the minutes, but it has not been sent in a signed version or with the list of employees attached.

I am bringing this to your attention now to see if you wish to make changes or would like us to proceed in seeking approval of this with a signed copy and the attachments. You also may wish to consider extending this for another year by your final meeting of the spring semester.

Thanks in advance..

$SCHEDULE A:

FCC LICENSES

By approving this document, the UT Board of Regents and the Texas Student Media Board of Operating Trustees are agreeing to investigate and, if possible, implement the transfer of the radio and television licenses from the UT Board of Regents to the Operating Trustees. These include:

The TV station is licensed as: call sign - K09VR (that's Kzero9VR), Austin, TX

License BRTVL-20060331AHH

term 07/27/2006, expiring on 08/01/2014

Facility ID: 66597

The following application has been accepted for filing as a digital companion channel to K09VR:

FCC form 346 "Application for Authority to Construct or Make Changes in a Low Power TV, TV Translator or TV Booster Station"

FCC file No. 20061027AAH

Radio is licensed as: call sign - KVRX-FM, Austin, TX

License: BRED-20050322AFW

term: 07/27/2005, expiring on 08/01/2013

Facility ID: 66607

AS - Aural Studio Transmitter Link

Call sign: WMV362

Associated Broadcast Parent Station call sign: KVRX-FM, Austin, TX; facility ID 66607
SCHEDULE B

MEDIA ASSETS

Texas Student Media has in cash on hand, accounts payable and receivable, as well as cash in Reserve and Gift Accounts totaling $823,718.91 as of December 31, 2006. The balance sheet is reproduced below:

Texas Student Media
Balance Sheet
As of 12/31/06



Cash	(205,199.38)
Cash--Operations Reserve	106,943.48
Cash--Reserve for Capital Improvement	717,916.27
A/R--Baseview	290,566.57
A/R--INK	648.98
Total Current Assets		910,875.92

Total Assets		910,875.92


A/P--Walsworth	25,085.00
Sales Tax Payable	60,612.01
Deferred Revenue	1,460.00
Total Current Liabilities		87,157.01

Retained Earnings	786,069.49
Current Income	37,649.42
Total Owners Equity		823,718.91

Total Liabilities & Equity		910,875.92

TSM assets also include the following:

--Equipment, including a Goss Urbanite press, 120 computers, digital and film cameras, television and radio transmission equipment, as listed in the 2006 University of Texas inventory identified as 4620-000 Texas Student Publications. That inventory has a purchase value of $1,530,238 and a depreciated value of $209,512.

--Equipment purchased since that inventory, including two cameras, 18 computers, three printers and two monitors totaling $30,750.

--Office furniture not listed on the UT inventory that has an estimated value of approximately $58,170. This includes one shredder, two fax machines, 79 tables, 125 desks, 74 filing cabinets, 281 desk and side chairs, 25 sofas, 11 cushion chairs, 42 bookshelves, break room appliances, a wooden cabinet, four chalk boards and four stools.

--Current inventories of newsprint, ink, printing plates and related supplies totaling $43,435.

--And office supplies with a current value of about $5,000.

SCHEDULE C

STUDENT MEDIA

The Daily Texan, a student newspaper published weekdays during the long semesters and summer sessions.

Cactus, a yearbook produced annually by students that covers the history of the year in photos and stories.

Texas Student Television, an FCC-licensed television station, operated by students.

KVRX Radio, an FM radio station, licensed by the FCC and operated by students.

Texas Travesty, a satirical humor magazine produced about seven times per year by students.

SCHEDULE E

INSURANCE

The UT System Office of Risk Management coordinated our purchase of both a general liability and a media liability policies in the amounts of $1 million respectively through:

Wortham Insurance & Risk Management

221 West Sixth St.. #1400

Austin, TX 78701

Phone: 512-453-0031

Fax: 512-453-0041

SERVICE AGREEMENT

Whereas the Board of Regents of the University of Texas (“University”) and Board of Operating Trustees of Texas Student Media Trust (“Operating Trustees”) have amended the Declaration of Trust;

Whereas, the Amended and Restated Declaration of Trust has altered the historic relationships between the Trust and the University,

The University and the Operating Trustees have for good and available consideration agreed as follows:

I. Definitions

1.1 The definitions in the Amended and Restated Declaration of Trust, a copy of which is Attachment 1 hereto and incorporated into this Agreement, shall apply to this Service Agreement.

1.2 “Operating Revenue” shall mean all revenue received by the Trust other than funds received from the University including student service fees.

II. Purpose of Agreement

2.1 The purpose of this Agreement is to implement paragraphs 3.1 and 4.1(b)(1) of the Amended and Restated Declaration of Trust and to allow the Trust to retain staff who are employees of the University.

2.2 The specific goal is to allow the current personnel who have served as printers, accountants, and day to day managers of the Trust to continue to provide those services to the Trust without losing the retirement and other non-salary benefits they have had as employees of the University and to allow the Trust the opportunity to take advantage of discounts and other purchasing advantages the University enjoys.

III. Terms of Agreement

3.1 The term of this Agreement is from May 8, 2007 until August 31, 2008.

IV. Leased Employees

4.1 During the term of this Agreement, and while their employment with the Trust continues, the current employees of the University that are assigned to work for the Trust will remain employees of the University. Those employees (“Leased Employees”) are listed on Attachment 2 to this Agreement. The Leased Employees shall receive the salary and benefits they are receiving or would have received, but for this Agreement during the term of the Agreement. The Leased Employees shall be assigned during the term of the Agreement by the University to perform the tasks assigned to them by the Board of Operating Trustees, but remain obligated to comply with the University rules and regulations as provided in the Amended and Restated Declaration of Trust of Texas Student Media Trust. The Operating Trustees may, however, terminate any of these employees so long as it follows the applicable University rules and procedures. The Operating Trustees have no intention of changing any University employees to Trust employees or to in any other way to reduce benefits or employment status of the current Trust staff so long as the individual’s work performance remains satisfactory to Operating Trustees’ management staff.

4.2 During the term of this Agreement all of the Operating Revenue shall be deposited in accounts designated by the University and pursuant to 3.1 of the Amended and Restated Declaration of Trust, which are controlled by the Trustees.

4.3 The Operating Trustees shall cause the University to be reimbursed for all of the expenses it incurs in providing the Leased Employees.

V. Student Employees and Operations

5.1 During the term of this Agreement, the Operating Trustees may employee the students (“Student Employees”) who work for the various student media the Operating Trustees control. Such Student Employees will be employees of the Trust and not the University and the Operating Trustees will establish their duties and obligations. The Operating Trustees will direct the University as to when, how and how much to pay such Students Employees.

5.2 The Operating Trustees may from time to time enter into contracts with suppliers or vendors as provided in paragraph 3.1 of the Amended and Restated Declaration of Trust without prior approval by the University and may direct the University to pay any cost associated therewith.

VI. Non-Operating Revenue

6.1 All of the Trust’s Non-Operating Revenue shall be deposited in accounts designated by the University and shall be used for the benefit of the Trust as directed by the Operating Trustees.

6.2 The Operating Trustees can invest the TSM Reserve Funds as they see fit.

Date ________________

OPERATING TRUSTEES THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS

By __________________________ By __________________________

Printed Name:_________________ Printed Name:_________________

Title:________________________ Title:________________________

TO: TSM Board of Operating Trustees

FR: Kathy Lawrence

DATE: February 1, 2008

RE: Monthly report

January saw a slight dip in our strong sales success this year, though we are hopeful of recouping lost ground in later months. Otherwise, however, we have lots of new students in various TSM entities, and things are off to a strong start on the content side this semester. Area by area, we find:

--TSTV is in full swing for the semester. The semester orientation meeting was held in the CMA auditorium to a full audience, which has not happened for a spring semester in the past. A few years ago the orientation meetings for both semesters could be held in the studio, but these have been getting consistently larger as more shows are added.

--One new show this semester will be a third weekly sports show. Other returning shows are improving sets and graphics, requiring some minor upgrading of the graphics system memory to run the more complex, moving graphics. Shows are also beginning to shoot more packages--interviews and features, to be integrated into studio shows.

--The FCC will be opening a window for low power stations to file for Class A status, which grants most of the protections afforded to full power stations. With the protections, also come increased requirements. But the Washington FCC attorney has recommended that the proposed digital companion channel, which would cover over one million people with 4 channels, might be worth protecting. We will continue to investigate. The filing window probably wouldn't open until the end of the year, or so.

--KOOP-FM returned to the daytime airwaves of the 91.7 frequency on January 25. They are temporarily broadcasting from the Entercom affiliate (KKMJ, KAMX, KJCE-A). The authorities have made an arrest in the KOOP arson case, as well. TSM disaster planning is being addressed as part of the overall Entekrprise Risk Management assessment that is reviewed annually.

--Adviser Mary Baird-Wilcock conducted another KVRX Brown Bag workshop on “How to Conduct Successful On-Air Interviews”. Next month’s Brown Bag workshop topic will be “Street Team Management and Guerrilla Marketing Tactics.”

--The Daily Texan continues to outpace revenue production for the same period last year. Local retail and national non-agency continue to lead the way. The Daily Texan is in fact, $64,196 ahead of last year through December. According to Wayne Roche’s preliminary report for January, we lost some ground but still maintain a healthy increase over the prior year.

The national non-agency business once again outperformed last January. Account Representative Joan Bowerman maintains a $69,913 increase over the same period last year.
National agencies are still struggling with a $12,000 shortfall in January.
Campus departmental advertising exceeded quota for the first time in January.
Local Sales took a hit in January for the first time this year. The students fell short by $6,500. Wayne suspects that much of this is due to student turnover. We lost four veteran reps to graduation in December. Our Student Ad Director, Student Ad Director Jalah Briedwell is confident the team will pick up the slack in February.
Classifieds appear to be making a comeback! While the category has been performing at 50 percent of prior year through December, the January numbers are quite strong. With one more day to sell, we have $10,800 in classified sales. This is 82 percent of the budgetd amount and only $2,000 short of January last year. Hard to say what’s causing this, but the enormous search engine optimization tweaks we’ve undertaken may be kicking in. This may also be a result of a more competitive housing market due to supply exceeding demand – something we look forward to on the business side. We also relocated The New York Time Crosswords to the Classified Page.

§ Daily Texan Online finished January ahead of quota.

TSTV and KVRX fell short of goal in January.
Travesty and Our Campus did not publish.

--Daily Texan tryouts are over, and the new staff has been hired. Work at the Texan is proceeding fairly well. New designers are being trained as are copy editors, reporters and new editors. Orientation was held successfully on Friday, February 1.

--The Texan will send three students to New York City for the CMA convention in March, where the Texan is a finalist for two Gold Crown Awards for spring and fall 2007. We also are making plans for the Texan Intercollegiate Press Association convention in April.

--Several “veteran” photographers left the Texan and Cactus in December, but there are many new applicants and returning photographers this spring to fill the gaps at the Texan and the Cactus. By the time you read this, photographer tryouts will be finished and new staffs should be in place. The multimedia editor, Ranjana Thomas, has been running herself ragged working on video projects with tryouts for her staff.

Dear TSM Board members,

Next Deadline

We’re rapidly coming up on our next deadline – February 26^th, and things are looking up. After a couple minor setbacks, we’ve now completely resolved the font problem we faced after the last deadline. During the past week I’ve met and worked with section editors on an individual basis to determine spread deadlines for their sections. I’ve called them “mini-deadlines” and hopefully, this new way of setting weekly deadlines will prevent backlog among section editors as well as design team members.

Photo Studio

To advertise for the Photo Studio, we’ve created Facebook flyers as well as a Facebook event to which we can invite people. This week we discussed tabling and re-vamping our fall A-Frame advertisement, but more discussion and possible plans for those two ideas are currently in the works.

Writer and Photographer Recruitment

Jenny, our Assistant and Copy Editor, has been hard at work recruiting writers from a wide range of classes in the J-school and the efforts have shown through. Last Tuesday, Jenny held a writer meeting with seven brand new writers. Additionally, she’s received responses from experienced writers who plan on returning. Photo recruitment has gone well, also, with several people dropping off photographer applications within the last week.

Update on the Design Team:

After discussing with the previous Design Editor, Jenny and Kathy, I’ve promoted Brennan Lawler to the position of Design Team Editor. I’ve received two applicants for the now-vacant design team member position, and hopefully will have placed one by the time the meeting occurs.

Cheers, love and Cactus,

Eleanor Bartosh

Editor-In-Chief

Cactus yearbook

Greetings Board:

I realize it seems as if I have slacked a bit on completing an online content unpublishing policy, but really this issue has only become more complex with every new complaint I get (I’d say I get about one per week). Frankly, I am not sure if there is a right solution to the problem, and making a policy decision has been difficult.

I am not alone in this uncertainty. In a Sunday column on the issue, New York Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt quotes Greg Brock, the paper's senior editor in charge of corrections, as saying: "It totally stumps me." Hoyt estimates the Times gets an average of one content removal request per day.

In the cases I have encountered at the Texan, most are cut and dry. A person who evidently Googles his or her name for the first time comes across a previous story, comment or Firing Line and decides it would be more suitable to not have it there. Most assume that they can simply request removal for no good reason and it will be granted, and I respond by letting them know we have a policy that explicitly outlines the importance of keeping our records in tact. (We got one request in which the person said he was worried a potential girlfriend might Google his name and see his comments, and that was pretty funny.)

But things get complicated when the content is not authored by a Texan staffer (such as a post to the comment board) or when a person claims someone fraudulently posted under his or her name. Such has been the situation in a recent case, in which I suggested the person re-post on the same board to clarify he did not make the comment. Still, he is claiming that someone wrongfully entered in both his name and e-mail to make the post, and he doesn’t want to back down. I even explained that, because we provide the option of posting anonymously, we are in no way inviting a situation in which one would feel compelled to fraudulently use another’s name. Even if we were to have someone monitoring comments 24/7, there is absolutely nothing we could do to prevent a case like this, and it is hard to say who is to blame. Or what about a situation in which bad news about someone accurately gets published, and a year later charges or claims in the story is proven false? More importantly, even if we were to remove such content, a record would remain on Google for who knows how long. The scenarios are endless.

In Hoyt’s column, he said that, until recently, the Times’ response has been the same: “There’s nothing we can do.” Poynter ethicist Bob Steel has a good point in saying that he would approach the notion of removing or altering articles from a newspaper’s archive with great caution. “There are consequences to that,” he said. “An absence of a piece of information could lead to rumor, falsehood, inaccurate actions down the road by somebody because they can’t find the record. The public would have every reason to say: ‘What else is missing? What else is altered?’ ” On the contrary, I see it totally legit in some circumstances for a paper’s archives to “forget” some information, just like humans do. Why not just abide by the philosophy of remembering the important stuff and forgetting the trivial stuff?

So I will wrap this up with my “final” decision on protocol:

- All unpublishing requests much be submitted in writing and review/decided by a “board” made of the editor, managing editor, advisor and writer/department editor (if available). The decision must also be documented in writing. I see no other way to go about this problem than a case-by-case basis.

- We should amend the disclaimer that one reads before posting a comment. It currently reads as follows: “Let your voice be heard. Fill out your comments below. Be sure to include your name, major, and classification. Submissions without this information are subject to deletion. By clicking Post, you give The Daily Texan the right to publish your comments in any form, including online and in print in The Firing Line. Please limit your comments to 300 words. The Daily Texan reserves the right to edit all comments for brevity, clarity and liability. You may also send Firing Lines to the editor at firingline@dailytexanonline.com.” I think we should add a line that reads: By posting a comment I verify that all content in this posting is true and accurate to my knowledge, and subject to media law. The Daily Texan policy prohibits removal of online content.”

- The board shall take into account the following things: 1) nature of both the content and extent of request (i.e. Do they want a whole article removed or