Students deserve answers from those that claim to represent them

In American politics, during the campaign season especially, the media has played a historically important role in connecting candidates running for public office to the people they’re supposed to represent.

Because campaign trail reporters are granted close access to candidates, newspapers and other media organizations can ask tough questions of vital interest to voters.

In this way, news outlets serve the public interest by acting as watchdogs that ensure that candidates run fairly and are accountable to the people.

At Georgia State, however, this ideal has been threatened by non-reponsive leaders and absurd bureaucratic rules that limit access.

With the Student Government Association election campaign just a few weeks out, it was expected that candidates would want to begin using their student media as a way to reach out to students, though The Signal received nothing but silence at first.

When attempts were made to reach out to candidates, The Signal was told by front desk employees at the SGA office that no one would have any information on who the candidates even were until the night of the first debate, which was only four days before voting began.

Never mind that each candidates campaigns would have already begun by that time.

Since a few days is not enough time for a voter to make a decision on how to vote, The Signal made every attempt to meet with the SGA Adviser Darryl Holloman and this year’s election chair to come to a compromise that would best benefit the candidates and student body. Phone calls were made to the adviser but received no response.

Finally, an email was sent out on March 12 to Holloman and the election chair stating that, in the interests of students’ right to know who they were voting for but out of respect for the SGA’s existing campaign rules, we would be willing to hold off publication until the campaign season officially began on March 24. We requested to meet with them to discuss the issues at hand.

Adviser Darryl Holloman agreed to meet but changed the meeting time, after which he stopped responding to emails entirely. Election Chair Samantha Schikowski agreed to meet but did not specify a time or place until March 13, during which she agreed to allow The Signal to reach out to candidates and conduct interviews. She also said she would notify candidates that they were permitted to work with us.

Most of the candidates did not reach out to The Signal as would be expected of a candidate who wanted to speak to the voters. When reporters sent emails to the candidates with interview questions for them to answer, most did not respond at all. Reporters then went on social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter to ask candidates to respond to their emails.

It then took days before reporters finally began receiving responses from the candidates. It seemed the media was begging the candidates to speak to their student body, when it should have been the other way around.

In previous years, however, SGA has worked well with The Signal during campaign season.

Even with last year’s election fiasco – where the leading candidate was removed from the results after the votes had already been tallied, leading to an appeal that upended the presidency for an extended time – The Signal still was able to interview candidates and even co-host the most successful debate in recent memory.

A debate where our reporters were able to ask tough questions. A debate which drew a record showing of students. And a debate that trended in Atlanta on Twitter – engaged more than 300 participants in total.

For whatever reason, however, SGA decided they didn’t want to continue that partnership this year – compounding problems even getting in touch with candidates just two weeks before the election.

But this scenario sums up a much larger issue at Georgia State: refusal to work with the media or even talk to reporters.

On numerous occasions this year, other offices besides SGA have either refused to speak to reporters in one way or another or intentionally dragged their feet in responding to requests for interviews and information.

This presents a serious problem because newspapers play an important part in our nation’s democracy and, as public employees spending taxpayer dollars and student fee money, representatives of the University have an obligation to speak with reporters to ensure that those funds are well spent.

SGA is no different and if candidates are going to run on platforms of transparency, we think it’s only fair that they and the Election Commission do everything in the future to make themselves available.