The Iowa State Daily and Iowa State have finally signed a specific, formalized agreement as to the relationship between the two.

The Daily’s General Manager, Janette Antisdel, said the agreement is really just a confirmation of what has been going on since the Daily started publishing.

“It simply clarifies a long-standing, 100 years plus, [relationship] between the Daily and the university,” Antisdel said.

However, part of the agreement states that both parties — the university and the Daily — agree that the Daily “is not a governmental body as defined in Iowa Code Chapters 21 and 22, and is therefore not subject to adherence to Iowa Open Meetings and Public Records Laws.”

Warren Madden, vice president of business and finance, said that although both parties agree that the Daily is not a governmental body, the legal decision may remain up to the courts.

This agreement comes at a time when the Daily and the university are under pressure from Partnership Press, publisher of the Campus Reader, the University Times and the Daily Tribune, to conform to the open records laws Partnership Press believes govern the Daily.

Madden said the university has met with members of Partnership Press and showed them the agreement but that the members were not entirely satisfied.

“They indicated that they did not think the agreement addressed all the concerns they raised,” Madden said. “We did not agree to all of the changes they felt necessary.”

The agreement also formalizes several issues surrounding the Daily including the Daily’s space in Hamilton Hall, where the Daily can distribute, what services the Daily must provide for the university and the Daily’s use of the university’s name and symbols.

According to the agreement, the Daily will continue to operate in its current space at 108 Hamilton Hall until such time as the agreement is terminated or the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication is moved or is eliminated, in which case the Daily would be moved.

“The [Daily’s] relationship with the journalism program is what ties the Daily to the university,” Madden said.

Madden said the agreement also specifically prohibits the Daily from distributing at places with relatively low student concentration, such as grocery stores. However, Madden said the Daily may continue to distribute in Campustown and on Cy-Ride lines used primarily by students, in addition to on-campus sites.

The agreement also formally allows the Daily to use the university name and symbols unless the name or symbols are judged by the ISU Research Foundation to be in violation of specific contract provisions, such as use with advertising or in a way “so as to imply that the university publishes or otherwise approves the content of the Daily.”

The agreement also formalizes the Daily’s responsibilities to the university.

“The Daily shall be operated as a newspaper as a service for the university community, including its students, alumni and staff, but produced primarily by students.”

As part of the new agreement, the Daily must publish “reasonable public service announcements at no cost when requested to do so by the university.” The agreement sets the limit of public service space to 1,500 column inches per year.

Madden said the Daily does this already but that this is a further formalization of the current Daily policy.