Salient biennial?

The SRC has directed the Publications Board to publish a weekly Salient.

At its meeting on 19 March, the SRC discussed the question of the frequency of publication of Salient following debate on a motion of no confidence in the Editor. The decision to revert to fortnightly publication had been raised in the earlier debate.

Following the SRC meeting, Association President, Margaret Bryson, said she interpreted the SRC motion as a directive to the Publications Board to review the situation earlier than had been planned. The Publications Board had earlier agreed—with only two (Simon Arnold and Bill Logan) of the dozen or so members of the Board present dissenting and with no abstention—that Salient should be published weekly until the end of the first term. At that time a review of the question of weekly publication would be held.

The Publications Board heard submissions from the Editor, Deputy Editor, Technical Editor, Deputy Photographer of Salient to the effect that, under the typesetting system adopted at the end of last year, publication of a weekly Salient was possible (in a form alternating between 12 and 8 pages each week) but that the quality of the newspaper must inevitably be lowered.

Members of the Salient staff contended that the difficulties encountered that the difficulties such that the apparently retrograde step of fortnightly publication was necessary if satisfactory editorial and technical standards were to be maintained.

Messrs Arnold and Logan apposed the change to fortnightly publication and suggested that reduced numbers of pages was probably the best answer to the problem. It was also their view that a number of technical difficulties which were being experienced at the time would soon be ironed out.