In this issue, we are running a letter from Missouri Students Association President Xavier Billingsley, in which he criticizes The Maneater’s reporting on [a $200,000 request he plans to make in November](https://www.themaneater.com/stories/2012/9/24/msa-ask-student-fee-increase-pay-200000-services/) to the Student Fee Review Committee. The letter brings into question our reporting practices as well as our analysis of the situation in [Tuesday’s editorial on the topic](https://www.themaneater.com/stories/2012/9/25/dsa-funding-increase-unnecessary-overshadows-legit/). We’d like to explain how the factual inaccuracies in both the article and editorial came about.
One of our MSA beat writers conducted an in-person interview with Billingsley, during which he told her, “We (MSA) are asking for a fee increase.” In explaining his plan to request $200,000 from SFRC, he said, multiple times, the money would be provided through a “student fee increase.” The Maneater editorial board has listened to the recording of the interview, and despite several follow-up questions by the writer, Billingsley failed to modify his statement.
Per Maneater policy, Billingsley was sent a quote check before the article was published. He responded to the email but did not correct the use of “increase in student fees” nor the implication that they would be raised to meet his $200,000 request.
After the article was printed, Billingsley and his cabinet responded by publishing the same letter on MSA’s website that we have printed. In a meeting with Editor-in-Chief Kelly Olejnik and Student Organizations Editor Elise Moser, Billingsley explained that the $200,000 would come by reallocating student fees, not raising them. This point was not expressed in his original interview.
Each year, student fees are subject to rise with inflation. When it does, the money is spread among the organizations, fees, centers and other services that receive funding through the activity fee. Billingsley explained to Olejnik and Moser that his request would involve moving money obtained by the increase to MSA, instead of having all of it dispersed among other services.
That was not made clear to our beat writer during Billingsley’s interview nor was it mentioned when he responded to his quote check.
The majority of the information in the article and the editorial we wrote based on it was drawn from the interview with Billingsley. To set the record straight, we have written [a blog post](https://www.themaneater.com/blogs/campus/2012/9/26/msa-president-clarifies-request-sfrc/), [follow-up story](https://www.themaneater.com/stories/2012/9/28/msa-clarifies-their-request-fund-reallocation/) and this follow-up editorial.
As a student publication, we strive to report the facts in everything we publish. Unfortunately, in this instance we were unable to. Student fees are a complicated matter, and we expected Billingsley to be more versed on the topic. In the future, we hope MSA can provide accurate informations or at least the avenues to access that information.