If you're into a good time, come to the prestigious Publication Awards tonight at 7:30 in the Tilden Room of MLK. (Fifth Floor.) If they're anything like previous years, the Berkeley Science Review and Blue and Gold will sweep everything, leaving the Squelch and other publications to weep salty tears.

I have nothing against BSR winning; it's a great publication. But the Blue and Gold is not a student publication. It's a yearbook. They don't even do all their own layout. Apples and oranges.

Is it just me or have publications taken a step backwards this year? The only new bright spot is Bezerk. Satellite finally breathed its last, leaving Cal with no general literary magazine.

Maybe I'm just teed because some of the publications have decided that the best way to get ASUC money is to take it out of the Squelch. Lets leave aside issues of 'fairness' and 'size of audience' and go straight to tactics. Publications will be far better off by increasing the pathetic percentage of the budget that goes towards them. Right now, they're at 2.69% of the ASUC Budget, far smaller then their reach to students and level of service. Rather then pick on the biggest fish in the small pond, we'd be much better off banding together and making it into a lake.

Squelch is a big juicy budget target partly because of those color covers we have. Nobody else is in color. But we have color covers because we work our ass off selling ads. Many ads. The ASUC money just covers the fact that we have a far larger print run then the other pubs, owing to our reach. If other publications want to be trained how to sell ads effectively in Berkeley, we'd certainly be more then happy to help.

If we don't hang together....

BTW: The Daily Cal has apparently gotten upset at what I posted below over Calstuff having three reporters to their one at the Judicial Council hearing, 'Booyah.' I was kidding! Of course it's kind of silly in newspaper terms to have three reporters at one fairly minor event. Lisa is a good reporter. Email This Post!