After what happened earlier this semester at Grambling State with the challenges its student newspaper  faced, it looks like we have another one of our student publications at our HBCUs in a crisis.     Fortunately, The Gramblinite is back in publication.  
 
The article on The Famuan appears in today's edition of THE HILLTOP (Howard U's daily).  As  a former Hilltop editor, I know this situation with The Famuan hits close to home.    Some of you may have been in attendance at the HBCU newspaper conference last week at FAMU.    
 
 
 
George Daniels
 

Famuan Says "No Pay, No Paper"

Posted: 2/20/07

As reported by Sidney Wright, IV for Black College Wire in today’s  issue of The Hilltop, several members of The Famuan newspaper have gone on strike due to failure to receive paychecks from the University.  Seventeen members of the newspaper’s staff, along with many adjunct professors and other student employees, have not been paid by Florida A&M University this semester.

Castell Brant, the university’s interim president, said the students will be paid this week and that there is no clear or distinct reason for the hold up.

This state university should be held accountable for the inability to pay so many employees in a timely fashion. It is wrong that they are not paying these students and blaming it on an error in budgeting.

The frequent question that  The Hilltop editorial board members asked was, “How can something like this happen at a university that has been in existence for so long and has state backing financially?”

The answers have to be stronger than a budgeting error that was overseen during the last administration. It is unreal to believe that a state funded university could incur that much financial ruin to the point where a budgeting error would not allow them to pay a significant number of people.

But it is real that The Famuan’s Editor-In-Chief Alaythia C. Burkins had the lights in her home turned off for inability to pay her bills. At an editorial roundtable at the HBCU Newspaper Conference, The Famuan Business Editor Robbyn Mitchell said that some of the staff members could not pay their rent, and several have received eviction notices. 

The Hilltop staff members have encountered problems receiving payment from the University when first getting on staff, but that is not due to accounting issues.

We support The Famuan in their effort to ensure they get paid, but hope they are able to get back work soon.

If the University fails to pay these students and they remain on strike, it will only hurt the University at-large. 

Although they will be required to print the advertisements they have already sold at a minimum in the newspaper, the University’s community will remain uninformed about issues that effect their lives.