Editor’s Note: Following the story on the cancellation of Senate elections (09-06-02), several senators expressed concerns about the coverage of the elections in the paper. Senate President Naz Urooj agreed to a follow-up interview, the full transcript appears below.

Jeremy Ball: Some of these questions are going to seem incredibly obvious, but just for the record I’m going to ask them anyway.

Naz Urooj: Yeah.

J: Okay, why was the Senate election cancelled?

N: Because we didn’t have anybody running in opposed positions.

J: And when was the decision made to cancel it?

N: We decided during Steering Committee meeting, which is held at 8:30 on Wednesdays in the Senate office.

J: Who all was involved in the decision to cancel?

N: Well, everybody who is in Steering.

J: And how many people is that?

N: Ten people.

J: Ten?

N: Yeah.

J: I’ve been told that it’s being said that elections are being postponed rather than cancelled?

N: Mmm hmm.

J: Have you made a decision as to when the election’s going to be?

N: Not yet. Actually, I’m going to leave that to Tamara Asad.

J: And why was the decision made to say that it’s been postponed instead of cancelled altogether?

N: How can you have an election when you have nobody running against you? You know we had no opposed positions. How can we have an election?

J: So the postponement is to see if anyone else is going to come forward to run?

N: Most likely, yeah.

J: Sort of on that same topic, it’s been said that if a position was to be contested than an election would be held. So say a student expresses interest in a position-hypothetically of course-is there a designated waiting period to see if anyone will challenge them for that position?

N: Well, the day that we’re going to have elections again. That’s the period. That’s it.

J: So you can announce that you’re running for a position up until the day of the election?

N: Yeah. You can even have a write-in.

J: So, as of right now, the ballots are still open and anyone who wants to can run?

N: But at this point we haven’t decided whether we’re going to have elections or not, so I’m not going to say the ballots are open. Because we don’t have anybody running in an opposed position. However, we do have.what we did was that.well, let’s just say you and I took our time to write the proposal or whatever. And we got ten people to sign our proposal. Instead of waiting for elections-because we didn’t have a lot of student interest-we gave you the position that you ran for. Let’s just say there were five people that ran for your position. For example, Bryan Hall. Only four positions, right? Six people ran for it. Most likely if you were to go through elections, those two people who didn’t get votes would be out anyway. We did offer people who didn’t get Bryan. we gave those the option of staying on Senate. Before you didn’t have the option to stay on Senate if you ran. It’s not the fault of Senate Steering Committee that we didn’t have elections, and that is one thing I do want you to put in The Guilfordian. That we didn’t have anybody running and that’s why we cancelled them. When you don’t have student interest what are you supposed to do? Maybe it was somewhat our fault that we didn’t publicize it enough, but I know I did enough of a job to make sure that people knew that Senate elections were coming up. That people should run, blah blah blah. It’s not my fault.

J: As far as publicity goes, that’s another question. Were there any attempts made to publicize that the election had been cancelled?

N: Yeah, we did do that. What we did was that we e-mailed those who ran-talk to Tamara about that. What it is is that I’m delegating.I know a lot of it is that “Well, Naz should know,” but Tamara is also responsible.

J: So only those people who were up for positions were notified.

N: Yeah, and they had the responsibility to get those ten people who signed their proposals and tell them that we weren’t having an election. It’s as simple as that. People running were as responsible as the execs.

J: Just to clarify this.what I’m hearing is that you’re saying that the election has been postponed. But if no one comes forward to contest a position then it’ll be the same situation? There still won’t be an election?

N: Yeah. The main two points are that: one, you cannot run for election if there are no positions contested for. Two, there was lack of student interest. So what can you do?

J: Well, down to the part that you’re probably most anxious to talk about. There’s been some discussion that Senate feels that The Guilfordian misrepresented them in the press. How would you like to address that?

N: Do you have a copy of The Guilfordian? I’m going to take one out and tell you how you misrepresented us.

J: If you can’t find one, I can go next door and get you one.

N: Would you, please?

(28 second break)

J: Sorry; I should have brought one with me.

N: That’s okay, let me look through this real quick. All right, first of all.is this recording?

J: Yeah.

N: Okay. The quote. See, my understanding is that if you take twenty minutes of someone’s time you should be able to quote them accurately. The story does start with my quote. Vera talked to me for a minute and a half during a Senate meeting; she did not interview me. You put this negative quote to start the article. I have nothing against the article, but I do have something against the quotes that were used. And that’s why I don’t like The Guilfordian. Misquoting.not misquoting, but only using the quotes that are negative. And if I’m working fifteen, sixteen hours a day sometimes during weekdays or weekends and thirty hours a week on Senate I expect The Guilfordian to work with me so I can let the student body know what’s going on. And right now, they weren’t doing that. In this article, they weren’t doing that. And I do not appreciate it. Hold on one second.

(visitor interruption; fifteen second break)

N: I know that they talked to Elizabeth and Floyd for twenty minutes at least. And they gave them a full story explaining why they weren’t having an election. I admit, [the article] did explain it, but look at the quotes they were using: “We’re not going to waste our time sitting in Founders.” There was a reason for that. Would you sit outside Founders if you didn’t have anybody coming in and running? Would you want a ticket that says you’re not running against anyone? No, you wouldn’t. Right? You wouldn’t have Naz Urooj running against nobody. Why would you waste paper, time, or anything when you don’t have anybody running? Do you get my point? Yes, Floyd did say that “there would be no need for a pointless election,” but he explained it. You never wrote that. There’s nowhere in this article where that’s written. It’s unfair. We work really hard and it’s not our fault that there’s no interest from the community. It’s not my fault. So I can’t sit here and be like, “Oh, yeah, we’re going to have elections” yet, because we didn’t. I do have a problem with the editorial, and I wish I had mine because I did highlight stuff on mine. I’m going to take a minute to tell you why I didn’t like that Guilfordian. Basically The Guilfordian says that: yes, Senate is doing stuff and yes, Senate is going to make sure people know what’s going on. But [Senate] started off with a rough start because they didn’t let anyone know that elections were cancelled. [The editorial] is basically putting a foot on [Senate] by saying that we’re saying something and doing something totally different. And that’s not fair.

J: As far as the information in the editorial and the article both go, you acknowledge that all the quotes and information are accurate? You just think that they’re slanted poorly?

N: I’m not denying that I said this. As I said earlier, we did agree that we’re not going to have el
ections because there was no need for it. I did say that. But at the same time I explained why. If I took twenty minutes of your time, I would want you to put some positive.or explain a little bit better why elections didn’t happen. Instead of just putting negative, negative quotes. Like we don’t care. Like we’re wasting our time doing what we’re doing.

J: Any more criticisms that you have to level against the article or the editorial?

N: Well, like “Indeed the fact that the ticket is operating beyond anything other than their usual blanket statements and improving communications”-whatever that means-“and offering students a voice about what is a pleasant development.” It makes me mad because I read this and I’m like, you’re basically making fun of Senate because we’re trying to make something different and you’re putting it down.

J: Well, the editorial is a little different from the article because the article is specifically news reporting. The editorial’s just the opinion of the staff. People are welcome to respond to editorials like that.

N: I understand that, but I think that you shouldn’t write this editorial. Basically I think that if we’re doing something positive you obviously have the right to write something negative. Which you will, because it’s part of the whole media thing. You have the right because you are an independent organization. So are we. So if I want to write something about The Guilfordian, don’t I have the right to say whatever I want to say?

J: Absolutely.

N: Okay, well then.but will you get mad if I say something really negative about The Guilfordian?

J: I probably would, but we’d still publish it regardless.

N: I don’t care what you.the editorial is like.the way I see it is like, if I don’t like The Guilfordian and I’m on Senate and I have a newsletter that goes out and I write something negative, you will get mad about it. Because you might have some personal issues with it. I don’t know who wrote this [the editorial]. The person who wrote it might have some personal thing against Senate and that’s why they put us down. And you know what? I don’t appreciate it.

J: Yes, but.

N: I don’t appreciate it and I don’t have the time to spend every week explaining. Every time you write something negative about Senate we read it. And I don’t have thirty, forty minutes every week writing back. I don’t think it’s right! I think it’s unfair. I already told this to James-if this continues then I’m going to take my time and put effort into having a website instead of talking to The Guilfordian.

J: Just to make things a little bit clearer for me, is there information in the editorial that’s specifically false about Senate? Are there any facts stated that are untrue? Before we discussed that all facts in the article are true, if slanted in a negative direction. The editorial can be slanted in a negative direction because it’s opinionated. But if there’s false information there, I’d like to know about it.

N: First of all, you shouldn’t write an editorial on something you don’t know a lot about. Whoever your staff person is is not on Steering, not on Senate. They don’t know the inside out of what’s going on. How are you going to write a full article on something you don’t know about? On rumors that you hear?

J: Well, we shouldn’t do that, but that doesn’t answer my question as to whether or not there’s false information in there.

N: As I said, I’m looking at it right now and I.I don’t have my copy, the one that I highlighted, but.you know, I don’t have anything to say about it. Because I know you guys might just turn it around and say, “Well, Naz thinks there’s nothing about the editorial wrong,” or anything negative, or any misinformation.

J: The question wasn’t anything personal, I just wanted to check with you that all our facts were straight.

N: You guys get the facts right, but you don’t write them right. That’s the only problem that I have. Obviously we had an open house, obviously there are four people mentioned whose names are right. Obviously you do know our goals.

(visitor interruption; fifteen seconds)

J: Anyway, I don’t really have any further questions for you, but if there’s anything at all you’d like to add before we finish everything up?

N: Yeah, I think you should read the response that Melissa Starr wrote about The Guilfordian.

J: I think it’s going in our next issue.

N: It is. You know, I was going to write an editorial, but then James and I decided to do this [the interview]. I do want to say that we are trying our best to get to people. And if people aren’t interested it’s not our fault. We’re doing our work. We’re trying our best, and it really isn’t our fault that people aren’t listening. We do our best. And I do want to encourage The Guilfordian to get in touch with me twice as much about information. Last week you took someone else’s time doing this, this week you’re taking my time. I don’t mind doing this, but at the same time why should you write a story twice? You’re not going to put my interview on the front page. The article was, and the title of the article is something that we had a problem with. You’re going to put my interview where people aren’t even going to pay attention and read.

J: That’s not a personal decision; the news section always begins on the front page.

N: This is news, too? But you all aren’t going to do it, right? But I’m not going to say anything about it, because we’re going to have our website. If we need to have our own newsletter to let the community know what’s really happening in Senate, we’ll do that too. It’s your job to make sure that information is accurate and that people know what’s going on. We always get one side, obviously, but you did get two sides this time. You got the students’ side and the executives’ side. You make the executives look like they aren’t doing anything. So, whatever you want.

J: Well, before I turn this off let me just say that everything you said will be quoted accurately. No slant, probably just a straight up transcript.

N: Is our entire conversation going to be printed, or just the questions that you like and the responses I might have made that might make it sound okay or whatever. Is that what you’re going to put?

J: We’ll try to print it in its entirety.

N: We’ll see about this one.