EDITORIAL: A CALL FOR STUDENT MEDIA POSITIONS TO BE APPOINTED, SO WE DON'T HAVE THIS COOKED SHIT HAPPEN AS OFTEN AS IT DOES
For anyone who might think we get a kick out of this, we really fucking don't...
Looking at previous scrutiny we've put on both On Dit editor Ethan Penglase and SRC president and Young Labor Club member Matthew Boughey during their time as elected representatives, we're making it clear that what we have disclosed here is not published solely because of any malice towards either person.
Before we knew them in any capacity, we had a problem with the interference we witnessed
with political factions and student media run by the Adelaide University Union (AUU), in ways that we feel have been unfair to not only people we have known, but also to students who pay fees and memberships that keep those valuable resources running...
... oh, and also to an audience that is actually engaged enough to care about the issues student media attempts to cover, their role, and whether or not their intelligence is being respected in the process.
We will publish the information we have obtained. This has been given with its full context from what we've found, and for students to make up their own minds.
But we do, however, hope this goes some way to generate a discussion about the need for appointed media positions instead of elected ones, with the obligation made clear from the outset of the editorship to provide content with a clearer basis in the guidelines and principles outlined by the Australian Press Council.
Our own record on this has been patchy, at best. But that doesn't mean its not a good initiative.
Call that an agenda, or whatever you want. We just think its a good idea.
NOTE:
We reached out to Matt and Ethan through their official accounts with a number of questions about the direct messages we published on the page, and the circumstances of how this occurred. There was no response.
Fletcher O'Leary, the SRC administrator, did respond to our email - throwing it over to Matt to comment, despite one question being addressed to him in particular in the context of his role.
We have obtained more information also about suggested Progress factional pressure from an anonymous source, which we have included in this article.
On the 30th of April at 6pm the Student Representative Council (SRC) hosted a general meeting in a Hub Central Seminar room.
The meeting agenda posted online beforehand did not include details of a 60 Minutes Report SRC members had been cooperating with. But the copy provided to students in attendance did, based on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Officer and Ethno-cultural Officer reports.
According to the SRC Constitution (8.j), general meetings are open to all students. The agenda that was provided was distributed to those in attendance, and from what we've been told by members on both sides, no request was made to student media representatives present to omit that information.
We have since been told that this was sensitive, in-camera information provided in the agenda that slipped the attention of those in charge of reading over reports before publication and distribution. SRC members have confirmed this has been the shared role of the president and administrator since the unexpected resignation of Nurul Saleh, the General Secretary Progress ran in 2017.
At 9:10pm, this was tweeted with On Dit's twitter account, quoting the ATSI Officer's report included in the meeting agenda made available, which we can confirm for ourselves with the addition of the Ethno-Cultural Officer's report.
When we checked again, the tweets were gone.
Not long after, we received these chats from a member of Unite which we posted on the page later that night. They refer to current On Dit editor Nuer Deng, who was in attendance at the meeting, and works with Ethan. Recently, she had an article pulled down on both the Medium page and Facebook in what was according to a source 'suspicious circumstances'.
We have omitted the names and identities of other members of the chat, but will disclose one of the participants was the SRC Welfare Officer Ali Amin, who is currently in a relationship with Ethan. Amin is also is also the president of the Young Labor Club, and wrote the message, 'Well thats going to piss of (off) Nuer' in a tone - from what we can only assume based on his previous comments on the page - was sarcastic.
This isn't our first run in with claims that tweets had been deleted by Ethan under factional pressure from Unite.
MC messaged Ethan directly when claims were made of tweets deleted from a meeting on the 28th of February. This is what he got back...
(lmao)
He went on to deny any tweets were deleted, and sent MC a screenshot of the tweets around the matter of what was said by Women's Officer Olivia Savvas, 15 days after the meeting occurred.
Now, we don't have evidence apart from the suggestion of one participant who wrote 'he's done it before' for any deleted tweets in the past.
But it does warrant further inquiry, regardless...
It's important to note we didn't include one message in the chat sent by Matt Boughey about senior Progress member Oscar Ong, aiming to get Oscar to shut down Nuer.
When we saw what Oscar had sent to Nuer, it was pretty clear what kind of factional pressure was taking place...
Hopefully we'll get a response soon from the people we've reached out to.
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