Partnership Press is appealing their lawsuit against the Iowa State Daily Publication Board. Partnership Press won the court case where a District Court judge ruled that the Daily is a governmental body. But the Daily did not have to pay legal fees because the judge said the Daily was acting on “good faith.” The case will eventually go the Iowa Supreme Court.

Partnership Press, which owns The Daily Tribune, was seeking records under Iowa’s open records law. Anything which is ruled to be a governmental body is subject to the open records laws.

Throughout the case, Partnership Press has made a David and Goliath comparison saying they are David and the Daily (which they say is a part of the university) is the Goliath. Furthermore, they say the nine professional staff members who work at the Daily control and manipulate the students who work here.

The truth is that the Daily is not part of the university, it is a separate corporation. But because the student-owned Daily helps students learn journalism, it has an agreement with the university to receive a few benefits, such as space in Hamilton Hall. The professional staff help manage the business aspects of the paper, teach students to sell ads, answer telephones, run the classifieds and do production work (which is non-news-related).

The students do all the reporting, editing, layout, photography and major decision-making. The right to a free press belongs to the student editors at the Daily.

The students ask the staff to perform tasks for them, everything from answering phones to changing the color of the flag on the front page to purple.

The truth is that the Daily is the David and Partnership Press is the Goliath.

The Daily is students struggling to keep from being crunched under Goliath’s mighty fistful of dollars.