The Selection Process

There is an attitude which Tees appears to follow, which suggests that the more people there are involved in a decision making process, the more "democratic" it will be. The argument is pure hogwash. In general terms there are two tests which should be applied to any selection procedure; Is this the most acceptable procedure from a political standpoint?, and will this method give us the best person for the position?

By considering the procedure from a "political standpoint", I mean that we should consider whether the representative nature of the position necessitates having an election. Clearly if a person is to represent a student body s/he must have a mandate to do so, a mandate in the form of a popular vote.

Turning to the editor, as already mentioned, we are not considering a representative position, therefore the necessity for having an election for political propriety is absent. So we should move on to determine the best way of selecting an editor.

There are a large number of abilities that any editor must have. For a start, rather than an ability at public speaking (which is necessary, generally, to win elections), an editor should be able to write clearly. This is hardly likely to be revealed at an SRC. But most importantly there are a large number of technical aspects in which a prospective editor must be competent.

In Issue 2 of Salient this year we ran a brief run-down of the technical aspects of assembling a newspaper. None of the tasks that are called for are easy, all require skill and experience. It is completely fallacious to consider that the editor merely has to sit in an office and write a few articles. It is a highly skilled job and it is ludicrous to suppose that an SRC of several hundred students, most of whom would have little idea of the work involved, will be able to correctly assess the relative abilities of a number of candidates to perform these tasks adequately. Perhaps SRC should select the best candidate for Station Manager of Radio Active. That job is clearly one which involves a large measure of technical competetence. Although the Salient office lacks the bewildering array of dials and knobs of the Active studio, the work is no less technical.

The existing arrangement, an appointment by the Publications Board, however does allow for a more satisfactory [unclear: invest] gation of applicatants to see it they [unclear: have] necessary qualities. For a start most [unclear: me] of the board have at least some [unclear: familiaria] with the way a student newspaper is [unclear: run] as it is interest in this area which leads [unclear: th] to stand for the Board.

The other main advantage of the [unclear: exist] system is that the members of the [unclear: Board] nerally have some knowledge of the [unclear: appl] cants. This is not because Salient is a [unclear: "c] sed-shop", but rather the editors for [unclear: one] year are invariably drawn from the [unclear: prece] ding year's staff. The advantages of [unclear: this] tradition are quite obvious. If nothing [unclear: e] they ensure that prospective editors [unclear: have] some appreciation of the work [unclear: involved]. The successful candidate will be in the [unclear: p] sition of being able to train new staff [unclear: rat -] her than having to be trained by them.