Leads to question – Is Fulcrum worth-while?
Originally published on Friday, Jan.26, 1951
The Fulcrum is bankrupt, unable to continue operations because its parent body, the Students’ Federation itself is on the “financial rocks”.
The resultant maze of confusion in trying to figure out where The Fulcrum stands in this deplorable hodge-podge, is tinged by the realization that this story, written just before press-time, may be the Fulcrum’s own obituary.
Not appreciated
That the Fulcrum editorial staff is actually prevented from further publishing, there is no doubt. For some time the Students’ Federation has controlled the Fulcrum’s finances, appropriating to the Fulcrum a certain amount of the $4,000 the Federation collects from the students.
The Fulcrum was to make up the rest of the expenditures for printing from advertising revenue. As far as it went the system was satisfactory, but it didn’t go far enough, because now that the Federation has used up this year’s funds on appropriations to all the campus activities, The Fulcrum’s financial support has been cut off.
More advertising
In order for the Fulcrum to keep publishing at its present standard, the space devoted to advertising would have to be increased two and a half times. Said Editor Dubreuil: “The paper couldn’t stand that much advertising … We’ve already had too many complaints from readers on the amount of advertising we’ve been carrying to the exclusion of student news”.
All the presupposes that the additional advertising could be obtained in the first place, which the Fulcrum advertising staff flatly denies in view of this season of the year.
Veteran Fulcrum observers, on being informed of the “folding” of the Fulcrum, said that hard times have been experienced before, and that the paper had always weathered them.
This time? The answer is said to lie with the initiative of the Federation in seeking out some form of subsidy. The Fulcrum editors cannot be expected to fight their way out of the financial doldrums unassisted.
“No matter where the fault lies,” said Mr.Dubreuil, “the fact still remains that the Fulcrum cannot stand unassisted. If no help is forthcoming, this looks like the end for this year.”
Fun facts about this article
-Douglas Roche was born in 1929, he is still alive today and has had an illustrious career. He was a Conservative member of parliament for two different Edmonton electoral districts from 1972 to 1984, he was the Canadian Ambassador for Disarmament at the United Nations from 1984 to 1989 and served as the Chairman of the United Nations Disarmament Committee in 1988. Following his role on the Disarmament Committee, he served in a number of roles at the U.N until he was appointed to the Senate of Canada where he served as a Senator from 1998 to 2004. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada.
-Robert Dubreuil was the Fuclrum’s Editor-in-Chief in 1950-51.
-According to the Fulcrum’s Wikipedia “In 1951, the SFUO (suffering from serious financial problems) proposed that The Fulcrum and La Rotonde be combined into one publication and renamed The Ottawa. The proposal was rejected, but operations at the two papers were condensed into one workspace in the house the SFUO occupied at the time.”
-The Fulcrum became financially independent from the SFUO on June.1, 2005, thanks to the efforts of 2004-05 editor-in-chief Mary Cummins and managing editor Marcus McCann.
