tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56371645336023653812024-03-05T04:05:12.633-05:00The NASHionalArshy Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17406757528122560238noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637164533602365381.post-18382470634192898682012-11-01T18:15:00.003-04:002012-11-01T18:20:51.232-04:00The Ryerson Free Press mysteriously halts publication<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjr_S_M4H7onlxnc4BgByTVHve-LHtxhkGcop5NmG2HgDQkobc2yEA0h0HIg2vAjTCyq_BN54rEpwdmGpmhmDU7xTYUjNIB4rrH8QLx678x8XwGq_xrQQAcF9z_uIjm_LhUZvBTRkkCHA/s1600/thumb.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjr_S_M4H7onlxnc4BgByTVHve-LHtxhkGcop5NmG2HgDQkobc2yEA0h0HIg2vAjTCyq_BN54rEpwdmGpmhmDU7xTYUjNIB4rrH8QLx678x8XwGq_xrQQAcF9z_uIjm_LhUZvBTRkkCHA/s1600/thumb.jpeg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stands, stands everywhere, but not a paper to read. (Photo by Dasha Zolota/The Eyeopener)</td></tr>
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Well this is certainly weird. <a href="http://theeyeopener.com/2012/10/ryerson-free-press-halts-publishing/">From <i>The Eyeopener</i></a>:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
The Ryerson Free Press (RFP) will stop publishing for the foreseeable future after the abrupt departure of editor-in-chief Clare O’Connor, who is now entrenched in legal proceedings with the Continuing Education Students’ Union of Ryerson (CESAR), the paper’s publisher.<br />
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“Through a series of unfortunate events, it appears that our October issue is postponed indefinitely,” said James Burrows, the RFP’s news editor, in documents obtained by The Eyeopener.<br />
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“I unfortunately can’t [say] any more than that, as I don’t know any more, other than we no longer have an [editor-in-chief] and there appears to be no plans on the part of CESAR, our publisher, to hire one.”<br />
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One of Ryerson’s three campus newspapers, the RFP is an alternative publication aimed at part-time and continuing education students.<br />
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It is largely staffed by members of CESAR and publishes on a monthly basis.<br />
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O’Connor, who was in her first semester as editor-in-chief of the RFP after taking the reins from long-time editor Nora Loreto, published the September issue of the paper before her departure. Under the RFP’s mandate, they are unable to publish both online and print articles without a sitting editor-in-chief.<br />
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The circumstances surrounding O’Connors departure and the status of her legal proceedings with CESAR remain murky.</blockquote>
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<a name='more'></a><br />
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<blockquote>
“What little information I have been able to receive from [CESAR] has been slowly and painfully extracted,” said Burrows in documents obtained by The Eyeopener. “Without an editor-in-chief my mandate is zero to do anything. What is worse is that our publishers are not giving us any info about what is happening and little guidance around what to tell our writers about the future … given my recent interaction with them, I doubt anything will fix this.”<br />
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Annie Hyder, CESAR’s director of membership and communications, would not comment on the specifics of O’Connor’s departure or the status of their legal proceedings but confirmed that “she is no longer with CESAR.”<br />
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“Unfortunately I can’t really talk about the editor-in-chief because we are actually in a legal proceeding with [her],” said Hyder. “We are definitely working on making sure that there will be a new editor-in-chief in place and have the paper available as soon as possible.”<br />
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While finding a new editor-in-chief is a top priority, according to Hyder, she admits that CESAR’s upcoming health and dental [referendum] remains at the top of their list.<br />
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“Right now we have health and dental referendum, which is really monumental because it’s something that we’ve never had so it’s a huge opportunity for us. It’s something we are focusing on in the immediate,” she said. “But once that is out of the way we are definitely focusing on [the RFP].” O’Connor was unavailable for comment.</blockquote>
<br />Arshy Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17406757528122560238noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637164533602365381.post-73738363101904187972012-11-01T15:10:00.001-04:002012-11-01T15:10:51.856-04:00Student union to strategically review The Gazette at Western<i><br /></i>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0MQB-Wfc1rDRovqFqRoR3f7XTIbUzF1xbu1fJXbkAgaxiPwBTx9ELvi1bZxYalZE5VovgagXXWsPIf5Ac_AD1nGS8fN_qyxC6fnnJkJi8QmtoSywgijHnpiMje2vc1cCdZ4bEB7UZ5fc/s1600/03a_photo_Gazette_RitchieSham-612x400.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="418" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0MQB-Wfc1rDRovqFqRoR3f7XTIbUzF1xbu1fJXbkAgaxiPwBTx9ELvi1bZxYalZE5VovgagXXWsPIf5Ac_AD1nGS8fN_qyxC6fnnJkJi8QmtoSywgijHnpiMje2vc1cCdZ4bEB7UZ5fc/s640/03a_photo_Gazette_RitchieSham-612x400.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">They're investigating the newspaper! It's like Britain!! Ahh! (Photo by Ritchie Sham/The Gazette)</td></tr>
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<i>The Gazette</i>, the student newspaper at the University of Western Ontario (or Western University, or whatever the hell they're calling themselves these days) will be <a href="http://www.westerngazette.ca/2012/10/29/03a_story_gazette/">undergoing a "strategic review"</a> conducted by the University Students' Council, Western's student union.<br />
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From <i>The Gazette's</i> story:<br />
<blockquote>
For once, the Gazette will not be the one reviewing the University Students’ Council. Last Wednesday, council voted to undertake a strategic review of the paper. According to the USC standards, the Gazette is long overdue for an assessment.<br />
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“We like to review all our operations to ensure that they meet certain standards for our organization,” Jeremy Santucci, vice-president communications for the USC, explained. “The Gazette hasn’t been looked at in five years or so, so we want to look at the operational structure and ensure that it’s operating as a tight ship.”<br />
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The review will look at the organization and operation of the Gazette, which is Canada’s only daily student newspaper and is paid for by a student fee of $15.39 per student, as well as by advertising revenue.<br />
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“It will be focusing on the overall organizational structure of the Gazette to ensure it’s […] operating like a modern newspaper should be,” Santucci said. “It will be more in-depth because it will be more on the operational side, but the inherent implications will be financial.”</blockquote>
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More after the jump:<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />
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According to Santucci, the review will be conducted by a committee chosen by himself, and the editor-in-chief of the Gazette, Gloria Dickie. If the two cannot agree on members, the decision will go to council.<br />
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“The idea is that the committee would be composed of experts who are not affiliated with the USC,” Santucci said. “For example, someone from the [faculty of information and media studies] with an expert in this field, or somebody who is a Gazette alumni can provide expertise and advice in structure and operation of a daily student newspaper.”<br />
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Dickie said she was open to the idea of a review, and agreed the time had come to take a look at the paper’s operations<br />
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“Overall, I think doing a strategic review is probably a good thing for the paper, since we’re losing money, as is most print media,” Dickie said. “If there are areas where we can in fact cut money, […] obviously we’re open to that.”<br />
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“I think the concerns of the USC will mirror those facing print media overall,” she continued.<br />
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The motion received overwhelming support from council, passing unanimously. Nicole Cheese, president of the Arts and Humanities Student Council, echoed the sentiment the Gazette was overdue for a review.<br />
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“Any operation under the USC has to go under review yearly or every two years just because students do have a stake in them,” Cheese said. “Students pay for the Gazette, so we’re just making sure that everything is operating efficiently.”<br />
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However, Pat Whelan, student senator-at-large, said the motion for the review did not offer enough details.<br />
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“I think any review needs to have some sort of process and deadline included in it,” Whelan said. “The motion talked about the composition of the committee, but not necessarily when they would be presenting back.” He did, however, agree to the need for a review of the paper.<br />
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Santucci said he hopes to have a committee together in time for a presentation to council for next semester.<br />
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“I just think it’s a great opportunity for us to look at this, and be a part of the betterment of one of our operations.”</blockquote>
<i>The Gazette</i> is a bit of an anomaly when it comes to campus papers in Canada. With four issues a week, it's the only paper that publishes more than twice-a-week (<i>The McGill Daily</i> and <i>The Ubyssey</i> are the only twice-weekly papers left, with <i>The Gateway</i> and <i>The Varsity</i> moving to weekly recently.)<br />
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It's also the only very large paper left that is not fully autonomous from the student union, as demonstrated by this strategic review.<br />
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It will certainly be interesting to see if anything comes of this review, but everything seems to suggest that the student union and <i>The Gazette</i> are on fairly good terms.Arshy Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17406757528122560238noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637164533602365381.post-15402505461006258562012-11-01T14:50:00.004-04:002012-11-01T14:50:54.680-04:00The Salvation Army responds to The Ubyssey<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9ALD2ysBps_qH8mz52lK5TUN2QdlOg0YsskJAcwdlClqktZVI6_n8PC2iisHj_HTlxshOJ5K5zPbgXZYVsmiUkQmhECPks-1VhdU_f5WWstNFgqPFxE2myNelNv0Zz7Ua_tUDAwUPxeQ/s1600/wpid-salvation-army_20090423_Flickr-Tojosan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="427" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9ALD2ysBps_qH8mz52lK5TUN2QdlOg0YsskJAcwdlClqktZVI6_n8PC2iisHj_HTlxshOJ5K5zPbgXZYVsmiUkQmhECPks-1VhdU_f5WWstNFgqPFxE2myNelNv0Zz7Ua_tUDAwUPxeQ/s640/wpid-salvation-army_20090423_Flickr-Tojosan.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">(Photo courtesy of tojosan/Flickr)</span></td></tr>
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In response to <i>The Ubyssey's</i> <a href="http://arshymann.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-ubyssey-rejects-advertisement-from.html">decision to not run an advertisement</a> by the Salvation Army, the philanthropic organization has <a href="http://ubyssey.ca/opinion/letter-salvation-army-responds657/">submitted a letter</a> to their editorial board.<br />
<blockquote>
My name is Graham Moore and I am the public relations and development secretary for the Salvation Army in Canada and Bermuda. I am writing in response to your recent editorial, “Why we declined to run an advertisement from the Salvation Army: an open letter,” in order to clear up some discrepancies and paint a clearer picture of the work that the Salvation Army has done in Canada for the last 130 years.<br />
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First, the Salvation Army in Canada has a long history of serving those in need without discrimination. All of our social and community services are equally available, based only on need and according to the capability of the Army to serve. We uphold the dignity of all people and believe that all are equal in the eyes of God, regardless of sexual orientation. We firmly oppose the vilification and mistreatment of gays and lesbians.<br />
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Secondly, the Salvation Army is a Christian organization, founded on Christian values and biblical standards. However, this has no negative effect on our extensive social work, which is supported by public donations. We are the largest non-governmental direct provider of social services in this country, serving more than 1.8 million people each year. In fact, it is our faith that motivates us to help anybody in need, regardless of who they are.<br />
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While we understand that it is ultimately up to you and your editorial board to choose which advertisements to run in your newspaper, I hope that you may reconsider knowing a little more background about the Salvation Army and the work that we do.<br />
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I do hope that this helps to answer your questions and address your concerns.<br />
<br />
<i>Graham Moore<br />
Public Relations and Development Secretary<br />
The Salvation Army<br />
Headquarters for Canada and Bermuda<br />
Toronto, Ontario</i></blockquote>
Arshy Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17406757528122560238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637164533602365381.post-61453549587682877182012-10-30T20:21:00.000-04:002012-10-30T20:21:13.273-04:00The Peak gets murdered at SFUFour of the editors of <i>The Peak, </i>Simon Fraser University's paper, have been gruesomely murdered within the halls of the university they loved so dearly. All that remains is a video recording that leaves us with more questions than we began with. They died in the lines of journalistic duty, and for that, we salute them.<br />
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<iframe width="625" height="352" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/VJU8fSQRDtQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Arshy Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17406757528122560238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637164533602365381.post-34743876092742714112012-10-30T20:17:00.000-04:002012-10-30T20:17:00.323-04:00The Ubyssey rejects an advertisement from the Salvation Army<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK0wuNguvnOXAAFGrBWWNkijMYwKmzg8H3sLTqQmzTK1hfuf01nmIGCp97zM4gZrE4eQFXepmXS6o0u6xIdbXkI3-dQIEWGsNon1Vc7ISZjPSKvd5AQ9_znXbBMR8nVFtogFgUtxcstpM/s1600/wpid-salvation-army_20090423_Flickr-Tojosan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="427" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK0wuNguvnOXAAFGrBWWNkijMYwKmzg8H3sLTqQmzTK1hfuf01nmIGCp97zM4gZrE4eQFXepmXS6o0u6xIdbXkI3-dQIEWGsNon1Vc7ISZjPSKvd5AQ9_znXbBMR8nVFtogFgUtxcstpM/s640/wpid-salvation-army_20090423_Flickr-Tojosan.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">There is no gay sex or any abortions happening inside of that trailer. (Photo courtesy of tojosan/Flickr)</td></tr>
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Last week, <i>The Ubyssey</i>, the student newspaper at the University of British Columbia, <a href="http://ubyssey.ca/opinion/why-we-declined-to-run-an-advertisement-from-the-salvation-army-an-open-letter/">declined to run an ad from the Salvation Army</a>, both because of the content of the ad (weirdly anti-abortion) and also because of the Salvation Army's publicly homophobic stands. Here's what they had to say about it.<br />
<blockquote>
After considerable staff discussion and a vote by the editorial board,<i> The Ubyssey</i> has opted to decline to run an advertisement from the Salvation Army, slated for the Oct. 25 print edition.<br />
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The editorial board had grave concerns about both the content and source of the advertisement and thus cannot, in good conscience, accept it for publication.<br />
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In a unanimous vote, the editorial board decided that we are uncomfortable running an ad from an organization like the Salvation Army. In the past 10 years, branches of the Salvation Army have petitioned all levels of government for policies that deny equal rights to LGBTQ people. In 2004, the Salvation Army threatened to leave New York City entirely because of an ordinance that required groups with contracts from the city to “offer benefits to gay employees’ partners,” according to the New York Times. Their current position statement on homosexuality “calls for chastity outside of heterosexual marriage.” While the Canadian branch has been less vocal on this front, we believe the organization as a whole ultimately dehumanizes a group of people on the basis of their sexuality.</blockquote>
The rest after the jump.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><blockquote>
Like many other student newspapers in Canada, <i>The Ubyssey</i> has a longstanding ad boycott policy that allows the editorial board to refuse ads that are “overtly sexist, racist or homophobic.” As an editorial board, we can decline advertisements not only because of offending ad copy or artwork, but because we disagree with the source of the ad.<br />
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<i>The Ubyssey</i> also maintains a policy against running advertisements from either side of the abortion debate. In our experience, ads that are either “pro-choice” or “pro-life” do little to advance civil debate on the issue. The following paragraph, which appears in the advertisement in the shape of a hypodermic needle, is a clear violation of that policy:<br />
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“Before you know it, I’m a 24-year-old prostitute trying to support a crack habit. Then it happened. I found out I was having a baby. I wanted an abortion but I got thrown in jail before I could do it. That gave me time to think. When I got out, I knew what I had to do. So I started a support program to help me find what I’d been missing most. My self-esteem. Today I’m three years clean and have a beautiful baby girl. That’s the war on drugs Salvation Army helped me win.”<br />
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We understand that the Salvation Army provides vital social services like soup kitchens, shelters and thrift shops in many communities. But it also endorses and actively lobbies for social policies that shame people for who they are. It is on these grounds that we must decline this advertisement.</blockquote>
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All I can say is that I totally commend <i>The Ubyssey's</i> decision. [Full disclosure, I was an editor at <i>The Ubyssey</i> for two years]. This is pretty much the reason that student newspapers have ad boycotts.Arshy Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17406757528122560238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637164533602365381.post-67704568479057254292012-09-08T00:09:00.000-04:002012-09-08T00:09:20.837-04:00Back issues: The Martlet's favourite headlines 68-89<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU-bAIZiQWIR2-yRTfO9oYYqtSODz3zvTeajMUSwoTVaBcPGRnYsVworKny6vqUMkDlfkTM_u0rIUEdCltej-q6U8djPxuH33Jstoy3BzsJTW6Vx7AWDcJCw6oeGr1KngGE29M_NQ_v0I/s1600/6128634034_c5570d7726_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="516" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU-bAIZiQWIR2-yRTfO9oYYqtSODz3zvTeajMUSwoTVaBcPGRnYsVworKny6vqUMkDlfkTM_u0rIUEdCltej-q6U8djPxuH33Jstoy3BzsJTW6Vx7AWDcJCw6oeGr1KngGE29M_NQ_v0I/s640/6128634034_c5570d7726_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">The staff of the Martlet busy at work in their office in the basement of the Student Union building, 1976. (Photo by Ian Anguish/UVic Archives)</span></td></tr>
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<i>The Martlet</i>, at the University of Victoria, <a href="http://martlet.ca/martlet/article/best-martlet-headlines-19681989/">ran their favourite headlines</a> from <i>The Martlet</i> 1968-1989.<br />
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<blockquote>
<b>“DRUGS: where’s it at?”</b><br />
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March 5, 1968<br />
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Current UVic writing instructor and Vancouver Sun contributor Steve Hume wrote an article investigating the prevalence of drug use. He explained the illegal drug market, related legislation and international considerations in the first piece of his series on the subject. <br />
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<b>“SUB opens Monday”</b><br />
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Aug. 22, 1972<br />
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<i>The Martlet</i> reported on renovations to the Students’ Union Building (SUB), including expansions to the cafeteria and the air-conditioning. The highlights, however, were two 18-foot, dark oak-stained tables and several barrel tables “intended to give the impression of a campus Medieval Inn.” The updates included high oak stools, benches and oak barrel armchairs purchased from England for the then-brickwork foyer.<br />
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<b>“Trudeau, ‘beating the drums of national unity’ ”</b><br />
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Oct. 26, 1972<br />
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Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau addressed a crowd at the Royal Theatre in Victoria, saying that Canada no longer had an identity crisis and that we were no longer “in doubt” about who we were as a nation. <br />
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<b>“Math prof proposes 90-minute classes”</b><br />
<br />
March 1, 1973<br />
<br />
Today’s schedule of having two 90-minute classes per week, as well as the three hour-long classes, was proposed in 1973 by Marvin Shinbrot, a professor in the Math Department at the time. Previously, the schedule fit courses that went from Monday to Saturday. Shinbrot had professors in mind when devising the re-formatted schedule, giving them days off from teaching responsibilities to conduct research. <br />
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<br />
<b>“Disco hits the Library”</b><br />
<br />
Oct. 13, 1978<br />
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A large donation to the library’s music and audio department brought Saturday Night Fever to its collection, filling a gap in contemporary music with artists such as the Bee Gees and Jethro Tull. <br />
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<b>“Women physically capable”</b><br />
<br />
March 15, 1979<br />
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<i>The Martlet</i> printed an article outlining the work of two Massachusetts researchers whose study dismissed the notion that women aren’t strong enough to do what was traditionally considered “men’s work.” Almost all of the women involved in the study completed “heavy work,” and 92 per cent completed “very heavy work” such as carrying a 10-kilogram load up a slope and using treadmills at various speeds for an eight-hour work-day. <br />
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<b>“Line-ups make reg[istration] ‘sweatshop’”</b><br />
<br />
Jul. 15, 1982<br />
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Students began to line up at 6 a.m. in the SUB, and by 11 a.m. on the first day of course registration, the line was out the door. Students waited up to seven hours to register for their courses, hoping there was still space left in classes that fit into a schedule.<br />
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<b>“UVic gets engineering school”</b><br />
<br />
Feb. 10, 1983<br />
<br />
The B.C. Treasury Board approved UVic’s request for a $15-million Science and Engineering school and complex. UVic President Howard Petch put forth the request to promote high-technology industry development on the Island. <br />
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<b>“Students party less”</b> <br />
<br />
Nov. 2, 1989<br />
<br />
A survey on the habits of Canada’s post-secondary students found that students in 1989 would prefer to spend their money on travel, clothing and computers rather than partying. The study noted that students were older and had more disposable income than in the past. Notably, research showed that beer consumption was down slightly — 43.3 per cent of students didn’t drink at all. </blockquote>
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Personally I'm a fan of "Women physically capable." Have any great headlines from your campus papers' past to top <i>The Martlet</i>?<br />
<br />Arshy Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17406757528122560238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637164533602365381.post-21389739602454037842012-09-07T23:56:00.001-04:002012-09-07T23:56:14.486-04:00The Silhouette, the CBC and a "black woman student president"<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc5E2hsrbcn9A9wjmhF8fgabloIoo1yPv6zESrEN5b8ZAOCb66_-TMjGYf33zFlm7wQM8vpEh6si56bUaXVz3MpPJ6_QfJzUsf-qQqKteAqzrXAJ97SxeOFV4FaEOuxmWAtqdM3IBMM3w/s1600/hi-mac-pres-852-8col.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc5E2hsrbcn9A9wjmhF8fgabloIoo1yPv6zESrEN5b8ZAOCb66_-TMjGYf33zFlm7wQM8vpEh6si56bUaXVz3MpPJ6_QfJzUsf-qQqKteAqzrXAJ97SxeOFV4FaEOuxmWAtqdM3IBMM3w/s640/hi-mac-pres-852-8col.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px; text-align: left;">Stewart is president of the McMaster Students Union and, evidently, a black woman. (Photo by Adam Carter/CBC)</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<i>CBC-Hamilton</i> recently <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/hamilton/news/story/2012/09/05/hamilton-siobhan-stewart-mcmaster.html">ran an interview</a> with Siobhan Stewart, president of the McMaster Students Union, with the headline "McMaster's first black woman student president opens up about Hamilton."<br />
<br />
The interview began with your fairly typical profile questions, which led into this exchange between the interviewer and Stewart:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
<b>Q:</b> Do you consider “finding your way” as an influence?<br />
<br />
<b>A:</b> Yeah. Finding my way was a huge influence for me. There aren’t a lot of women in leadership positions, and there aren’t a lot of women of colour [in those positions]. When I was in high school, there was a Black female president on student council. I looked to her as a big sister and she really inspired me and we still keep in touch.</blockquote>
<br />
After a few questions about McMaster's relationship to the rest of the community, they have a longer exchange about race.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<blockquote>
<b>Q:</b> You identify yourself as a woman of colour. In what way does being a Jamaican mean (to you)?<br />
<br />
<b>A:</b> I don’t consider myself Jamaican. I’m Canadian. I have Jamaican ancestry and I appreciate certain things about the Jamaican culture — I’ll eat ox tail just like the next person. I love Jamaican food, I love reggae, coming together and having barbeques. I identify with being Canadian because this is where I was born. I don’t like people attaching labels to me because I am a Black woman.<br />
<br />
There are white Jamaicans too. If someone was a white woman here, whose parents were also Jamaicans, people would leave it as I’m just Canadian. Nobody would push saying I am a Jamaican Canadian. That’s tied to a more racialised issue in other places. That’s just my opinion. Some people will say I’m Jamaican Canadian — it’s not universal.<br />
<br />
<b>Q:</b> But you do talk about how it is difficult to be a woman of colour and even more so to be a woman of colour in a position of power.<br />
<br />
<b>A:</b> I think there are different challenges that different groups face — for women in general, for people with different abilities, for people with different sexual orientation, or for people who are transgender — where their gender identity don’t match up with the physical body.<br />
<br />
It’s a challenge because it’s not the “norm” and I don’t like using that word because what’s normal? I got to the positions I got to regardless of being a woman or being a Black person or whatever identities you attach to me or I attach to myself.<br />
<br />
<b>Q:</b> Do you think being a woman of colour plays a role in what you do?<br />
<br />
<b>A:</b> I do think it means something to be the fourth female president of the MSU ever. I’m the first Black female president — I think it means something for people to physically see it has happened! It shouldn’t be a token example; I shouldn’t be the only one. It should be a normal thing because I want to be one of many.<br />
<br />
And I don’t mean just the first Black female president, I want to see, say a queer president — it shouldn’t matter. That’s my point: it shouldn’t matter! It’s about making space for all people of all abilities. I want to see someone who says, “I have a learning disability but I’m going to do this.”<br />
<br />
And it’s not just about being the president of the student union, it’s about all capacities — president of the university, president of the country. University is a microcosm of the bigger world and it means something when these things happen.<br />
<br />
<b>Q:</b> So it does mean something to be a woman of colour to come into a position power at the MSU. And your presidency —what you just explained to me, how yes, it’s important to be a woman of colour, but at the same time, this is not what it’s about — speaks volumes.<br />
<br />
<b>A:</b> And I want to see it everywhere. It’s not just a racial issue. It’s everybody.<br />
<br />
<b>Q:</b> Do you consider yourself as a minority? Was there shock value to you being a Black female president?<br />
<br />
<b>A:</b> Not really, and I don’t think so. It means something and it matters because this wasn’t the case traditionally. I remember talking to a white male student from Engineering whom I had never met before asking me, how it feels to be a Black female to run in this race.<br />
<br />
So people do notice, because he wouldn’t have asked if he didn’t, but I think people ask questions like that because they’re excited. This just wasn’t the case traditionally. It’s hard to measure the impact I’m going to have. I just know that even for students who are not female or Black, there will be space for them.<br />
<br />
At the end of the day, yes I’m Black. Yes, I’m a woman. Yes, I’m Canadian. Yes, I’m able-bodied, and yes, I identify as being straight. But even before all of that, I’m a human and a person. That’s what we need to remember and that’s the challenge because identities get attached to people. And for some reason, because the way our society is constructed, it doesn’t necessarily make space for them.</blockquote>
<br />
This interview, along with some of the racially-tinged descriptors in the preamble to the interview, prompted <a href="http://www.thesil.ca/editorial-our-msu-pres-has-other-qualities-too">a response from <i>The Silhouette</i></a>, the campus paper at McMaster.<br />
<br />
Sam Colbert, EIC of the Sil, wrote: <br />
<br />
<blockquote>
CBC Hamilton released an interview yesterday with the McMaster Students Union’s president, Siobhan Stewart. The story, entitled “McMaster’s first black woman student president opens up about Hamilton” has two major focuses: Stewart’s work in the community and the fact that she’s a woman of colour in power. The first angle was understandable, given the media outlet’s general interest in downtown Hamilton. The second was unenlightened.<br />
<br />
First, there were unnecessary references to Stewart’s “brown eyes [that] twinkled behind her glasses” and to her “soothing, low voice.”<br />
<br />
And then there were the questions.<br />
<br />
What does being a woman of colour mean to you? Is it difficult to be a woman of colour in power? How do you think being a woman of colour plays a role in your job? Does it mean something to be a woman of colour in power with the MSU? Are people shocked by the fact that the MSU has a black woman president?<br />
<br />
Kudos to Stewart for the way she handled it. “I got to the positions I got to regardless of being a woman or being a Black person or whatever identities you attach to me or I attach to myself,” she told the interviewer. Stewart was consistent in her stance that her presidency, as well as the leadership of other women or visible minorities, should not be remarkable because of her physical attributes.<br />
<br />
Yes, our MSU president is a woman, and yes, she’s black. Maybe this is big news for CBC Hamilton. But here on campus, we’re past it. Siobhan got where she did on merit, and we’re prepared to evaluate that merit independently of her skin colour or gender. Cut the condescending congratulations.</blockquote>
<br />
<i>CBC-Hamilton</i> r<a href="http://www.cbc.ca/hamilton/talk/story/2012/09/07/hamilton-sil-editorial.html">an Colbert's criticism</a> on their website (definitely a respectable act).<br />
<br />
Personally, I didn't see all too much to argue with in the questions until CBC got to "Was there shock value to you being a Black female president?" <br />
<br />
What is that supposed to mean? And I mean that as a legitimate question. Did the interviewer actually expect McMaster students to be "shocked" by her? I don't think anyone has ever been "shocked" by my race, regardless of the context. <br />
<br />
But I think Stewart nails it when she said that "There are white Jamaicans too. If someone was a white woman here, whose parents were also Jamaicans, people would leave it as I’m just Canadian. Nobody would push saying I am a Jamaican Canadian."<br />
<br />
And despite her willingness to talk about race when discussing people that inspired her, I totally understand Stewart's frustration in being questioned extensively on her background. Being of a certain race in a position of authority isn't an accomplishment unto itself. And it doesn't make for a compelling headline.<br />
<br />
Good on the Sil for bringing this up. But also good for the CBC for putting up the criticism. <br />
<br />
Do you think the Sil was right? Or did the interviewer do nothing wrong?<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Arshy Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17406757528122560238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637164533602365381.post-26263573723600359912012-09-05T14:44:00.001-04:002012-09-05T14:44:33.193-04:00The Cadre responds!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA68-AiwRHE-HkJcskACfEtt46cq2CGaDLH0cghTTWhaBQkh2C6XO287m-fCCMVSSLBAuXNWgsSKCPXWtAH8xcCe5S3nxl6jCP7OeEaUCwWuJiMg8AZn2MvxefA6LZxIMv0p3sk-kbp6I/s1600/img_9436.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA68-AiwRHE-HkJcskACfEtt46cq2CGaDLH0cghTTWhaBQkh2C6XO287m-fCCMVSSLBAuXNWgsSKCPXWtAH8xcCe5S3nxl6jCP7OeEaUCwWuJiMg8AZn2MvxefA6LZxIMv0p3sk-kbp6I/s640/img_9436.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
The editorial team of <i>The Cadre</i>, who are<a href="http://arshymann.blogspot.ca/2012/09/upeis-cadre-is-going-online-only.html"> making the move to online only</a>, respond to my post about the shift. From their <a href="http://thecadre.ca/post/30936340249/the-cadre-responds-to-cup-national-bureau-chief-arshy">website</a>:<br />
<blockquote>Hey Arshy,<br />
<br />
Thanks for taking notice of <i>The Cadre’s</i> shift to online-only content. As you might imagine, these are wild times for us. We’ve gone from student newspaper, to student news empire, and we’re really excited to start firing with all blasters cylinders in our new format.<br />
<br />
In response to your recent article, we figured it would be nice to provide you with a bit more of <i>The Cadre’s</i> history.<br />
<br />
As noted in the big announcement last spring, UPEI’s student paper has been around since 1969. Since then, we have gone through a number of names, editors, logos, lawsuits, and pretty well anything else you can think of. Just a few years ago we changed our name to the fucking “<i>Panther Post</i>” and back again before we knew what hit us. Although we’ve been printing for over 40 years, we’re accustomed to change.<br />
<br />
Now, we’re going online-only. <br />
<br />
Personally, we think this is a good change. Over the past few years our paper has suffered from a small budget, an even smaller readership, and a series of shitty deals with printers that refuse to allow us to run less than 2,000 copies at a time. With a student population of less than 4,500 here at UPEI, we consistently ended up with a foolish amount of wasted paper littering the campus. Issues were thrown out. Issues were taken en mass by representatives of the PEI Humane Society to cover the kennel floors. <br />
<br />
You get the idea. <br />
<br />
In the end, we believe that going online-only is a move in the right direction, and one that will certainly become relevant to UPEI students on a day-to-day basis.<br />
<br />
You mentioned how students often rely on their campus newspapers to read casually, on the bus or in the cafeteria. There’s no denying that <i>The Cadre</i> served that purpose at UPEI. However, by printing new issues only every 3 to 4 weeks, the quality of the paper simply was not there. The new format allows us to cover news as it happens, not a month later. <br />
<br />
Just think: had our format remained the same, this response would not have been released for another three weeks, and you likely would never have found it.</blockquote><br />
The rest after the jump:<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<blockquote>As for lost ad revenue, we’ve been consistently inconsistent in that department over the past couple of years. Because of the systematic change to the look and feel of the paper year over year, we never had a footing in the local ad market to being with. The only way to go is up from here on out. Our business manager is already hard at work trying to keep our numbers at par with last year’s. As our new home expands and we dress it up with prettier bells, we’ll be more and more adept to serving our potential advertisers. <br />
<br />
We would be more worried about taking our service online if there wasn’t already some great student news orgs making waves online. Most notably, <a href="http://nyulocal.com/">NYU Local</a> and Penn State’s <a href="http://onwardstate.com/">Onward State</a> are online-only student news blogs that routinely break national stories at their schools. Is their student population 100x larger than ours? Yes, but it is a scalable operation. The small guys can succeed, too. <br />
<br />
So, in response to your question, we’re confident that we’re riding the wave of the future. Keep an eye on us this year. We think that we can make our little UPEI news empire shine like the dusty old monthly paper was struggling so hard to do.</blockquote> <br />
First, thanks to The Cadre for the informative response. They certainly make a convincing case going online-only is the right move for their paper.<br />
<br />
As for other campus web publications that have been successful, along with Onward State and NYU Local I'd also point to <a href="http://ubcinsiders.ca/">UBC Insiders</a> and <a href="http://eyeontheuvss.blogspot.ca/">Eye on the UVSS</a>. Both of those websites have found a great niche and consistently beat out their respective campus newspapers on certain issues.<br />
<br />
Regardless, I'm looking forward to seeing how <i>The Cadre's</i> experiment works out.<br />
<br />
Because how can you argue with a news <i>empire</i>?Arshy Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17406757528122560238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637164533602365381.post-11613249681411399462012-09-04T15:53:00.000-04:002012-09-04T15:53:22.183-04:00UPEI's Cadre is going online only<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDSBLV4FmqiwxFKmNfV90pOfGGLhwFeQx4u45HTuOGIW8aTqY-7JqNPBDtahXLhf-NO5Ncf7gitiVouSGR_D-S14R9Jq6oRhhxX3ZdNEqC4s9tS6vTDZMVwpEJ8LoMYS6F8ItwLepKYN4/s1600/img_9436.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDSBLV4FmqiwxFKmNfV90pOfGGLhwFeQx4u45HTuOGIW8aTqY-7JqNPBDtahXLhf-NO5Ncf7gitiVouSGR_D-S14R9Jq6oRhhxX3ZdNEqC4s9tS6vTDZMVwpEJ8LoMYS6F8ItwLepKYN4/s640/img_9436.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Cadre will no longer come in a stackable format.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><i><a href="http://thecadre.ca/">The Cadre</a></i>, the campus newspaper at the University of Prince Edward Island, is moving online only. <a href="http://thecadre.ca/post/30405936278/this-is-our-last-goodbye">From their website</a>:<br />
<blockquote>In an ideal world, a student newspaper serves two purposes: it is an informative, entertaining document that covers the moments we experience between the first day of class and last class bash; and as a place where young writers can grow and develop their voice. We haven’t been accomplishing this. <br />
<br />
Our monthly publication schedule hampers our ability to properly cover events. Our stories are long and broad and often come out two weeks after the fact. We’re going to be moving to a daily publishing schedule. Our content will be shorter and bloggier. Breaking news will be covered as it’s breaking. Bigger stories will get four to five posts from different angles, instead of one long, lumbering summary well after anyone cares. We’ll still do booze panels and stuff.</blockquote><br />
The rest after the jump.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<blockquote>The nitty gritty details, if you’re into that kind of thing: the paper is going to have five different sections, On-Campus, Off-Campus, National, Arts, and Entertainment and Sports. Each section will have a dedicated editor. Writers will be assigned to a certain section and work directly with their editors. Ideally, we’ll have ten writers at the start of the year that will do two posts a week, and we’ll publish around four posts a day. If we can get more writers then we’ll print even more. That would be rad.<br />
<br />
This isn’t something we’re getting muscled into by the Student Union so they can save money or build more busses. This was our idea. <br />
<br />
We know you’re going to miss the paper, but it doesn’t make sense to keep printing. There are too many issues left behind every month cluttering up hallways and lounges. We’ve looked into printing fewer issues, but our current 2000 issue order is the lowest the printer will let us go. The reality is that very few from our generation read the newspaper anymore. Or, they don’t read the newspaper on paper. Everyone reads The Guardian online for the comments, or the New York Times, or the Huffington Post, or Gawker, or Buzzfeed. We all read the news online.<br />
<br />
We know it’s nice to pick up a paper and hold it in your hands, maybe even see your face on the page, but it also costs a ton of money to make that happen. And focusing our efforts on designing a newspaper and adjusting the photos for print and the headaches and time it takes to make this Godforsaken rag just isn’t worth it anymore. The kids who are currently going to this school, and the ones who will come to this school, are used to reading things online. We’re just joining the party. <br />
<br />
The paper started in 1969. Letting go of more than thirty years of tradition is hard. “You’ve got roots like Pawnee,” said a guy I talked to about it. But from the very beginning we were the same smart, sarcastic, snarky, disenchanted jackasses we are now. Sounds a lot like your favorite websites, no? We were made for the Internet. <br />
<br />
So long, newsprint— it’s been good to know you.</blockquote><br />
This is a big leap for a student paper to make — and likely a permanent one. Once you go online only for a few years, the expertise built up over the years for how to make a an ink-and-paper publication will dissipate. <br />
<br />
It also cuts papers off from their biggest potential non-levy revenue source: print ads. The general consensus is that for every $7 lost in print ads, papers can gain $1 in online revenue. <br />
<br />
There are also arguments to be made that most students read the campus newspaper casually — on the bus, while eating in the cafeteria, or any other instance their trying to kill time on campus. The readership for online tends to be different than your print readers, and a move to online only has the potential to make you invisible on campus.<br />
<br />
Of course, there could be positive benefits to going tree-free. As <i>The Cadre</i> editorial staff points out, print takes a long time and a lot of work. People are reading more and more online and focusing exclusively on the web could help you build up new capacities, such as for video, multimedia and social media.<br />
<br />
Personally I'm a bit pessimistic about moves like this for campus newspapers. But what do you think? Is this the wave of the future or the death knell for the only print campus publication in PEI?Arshy Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17406757528122560238noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637164533602365381.post-53597723550758963632012-08-24T14:06:00.001-04:002012-08-24T14:06:51.201-04:00BREAKING: College newspaper endorses Barack Obama<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwVr_G-Y3k-icJwwfNtzlwxolS-N5xXFiQ89J2YFRaCFMs5dh7uqf1jF1ZzVliGG3KfeSFPiWCVI0o1KaWgtOJOWx5lPFoq5OcTArK6lK3lp-zPFMZIJAUZ1qq5Y1kN-8yse_DvZZYBHY/s1600/635.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwVr_G-Y3k-icJwwfNtzlwxolS-N5xXFiQ89J2YFRaCFMs5dh7uqf1jF1ZzVliGG3KfeSFPiWCVI0o1KaWgtOJOWx5lPFoq5OcTArK6lK3lp-zPFMZIJAUZ1qq5Y1kN-8yse_DvZZYBHY/s640/635.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #999999; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 13px; text-align: left;">The staff of Central Connecticut State University's Recorder.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
This one hits close to home. From <i><a href="http://www.theonion.com/articles/college-newspaper-endorses-barack-obamauniversitys,29285/">The Onion</a></i>:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
NEW BRITAIN, CT—Calling him the "best person to lead this nation forward," the editors of The Recorder, Central Connecticut State University's student newspaper, officially endorsed Barack Obama for president in a front-page editorial this week.<br />
<br />
Titled "Our Choice For Tomorrow," the 600-word endorsement—which follows recent staff editorials on late-night student shuttle service and expanding the use of DevilDollars meal-plan credits to off-campus eateries—carefully lays out why Obama would serve the nation better than Mitt Romney, whom the newspaper called a "worthy candidate" but not the one most qualified to serve in "the highest post in the land."<br />
<br />
"The important decision of whom to support in the 2012 election is not easy, and it is not a task we take lightly," wrote the editorial board of the newspaper that is published each Wednesday during the academic year. "The road ahead will be difficult, with continued challenges such as climate change, the debt, and ongoing global threats, but we believe Mr. Obama is prepared to deal with the hard choices of our time."<br />
<br />
"Despite not being able to turn the country around completely during his first term, the president has nonetheless delivered on many issues," the editorial continued. "That's why The Recorder offers its support to Barack Obama in 2012."<br />
<br />
The publication praised Obama's "bold vision," citing his commitments to higher education, technology, and "helping the poor and the environment." The editors also noted that they were particularly impressed with Obama's visit to the school's campus two years earlier.<br />
<br />
Despite its endorsement, the editorial aimed to serve as a "wake-up call" for Obama, sternly warning the incumbent that "slogans won't be enough this time around." The Recorder's staff, whose members receive four English Department credits for their work on the newspaper, went on to offer the president even more pointed words, stating that it was imperative he "stand up for the middle class" if he wanted to triumph in November.<br />
<br />
Flanked by articles on the volleyball team's recent 3-1 victory over the Fairleigh Dickinson Knights and an annual drag talent show planned for Greek Week, the editorial noted that it was providing a realistic assessment of Obama's first term by not only focusing on his successes in office, but also candidly shedding light on his "share of failures."<br />
<br />
Listing several unfulfilled promises and questionable policies that "did not please the editorial board of The Recorder," the editors went on to state that it was their duty as members of the press to ask tough questions, and declared the newspaper would "lend its support to Barack Obama, but not let him off the hook, either." In particular, they drew attention to a number of issues on which, they asserted, the president would have to "step up" and show some "real leadership."<br />
<br />
"Mr. President, we must ask you: What do you plan on doing about Guantánamo? And what about the situation in Syria, which has grown increasingly messy?" inquired the publication with a circulation of 1,500 copies that is usually picked up in the student union and flipped directly to the crossword puzzle. "These are real concerns that matter to the people of this country, and they deserve an answer."<br />
<br />
According to sources, The Recorder called an all-staff meeting last week at its offices in the basement of the East Asian Studies building to discuss which candidate to endorse, scheduling the assembly on a Sunday night so as not to conflict with the editor-in-chief's intramural broomball game.<br />
<br />
"We definitely took into consideration that Mitt Romney had success as a businessman," said 19-year-old Alfredo Cortes, the publication's managing editor and also the contributor of a twice-monthly house and dubstep music review column. "There was a pretty long discussion about who would do better on the economy, and a couple people were upset with the president's unclear stance on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, but eventually we decided Obama would be best overall, and we felt it was very important to get our paper's voice out there behind him."<br />
<br />
In making its endorsement, The Recorder acknowledged the "big expectations on the president's shoulders" and called on him to live up to his ideals. It also appealed directly to the nation's 140 million likely voters, commenting that the "future is in [their] hands."<br />
<br />
"America stands at an important crossroads, and we look to Barack Obama for a brighter tomorrow," concluded the newspaper of record for almost 10,000 undergraduates. "Hope? Change? We certainly hope so."</blockquote>
Arshy Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17406757528122560238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637164533602365381.post-63414496372890587072012-08-22T13:52:00.000-04:002012-08-22T13:56:06.336-04:00How a student newspaper story at UC-Berkley turned into a 31-year odyssey<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3VLj4L9c-bZEr1LjgIE1B7GfM-c9z_HmBUzZYscE07hQqq3GOJuocwnSAPlljU2NWrjceq9hl6Bwx_qECPiV2l90Go6p2Wn91tD2FbdZKhw3DXCli-1GSGo_1-MRih2rfIOhp_zZK1nI/s1600/mario.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3VLj4L9c-bZEr1LjgIE1B7GfM-c9z_HmBUzZYscE07hQqq3GOJuocwnSAPlljU2NWrjceq9hl6Bwx_qECPiV2l90Go6p2Wn91tD2FbdZKhw3DXCli-1GSGo_1-MRih2rfIOhp_zZK1nI/s640/mario.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mario Savio was one of the student activists targeted by the FBI at UC-Berkley. (Photo by Duke Downey/Chronicle File)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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San Francisco-based journalist Seth Rosenfeld has just released a book that details how deep and invasive the FBI's involvement was in the student protests that rocked UC-Berkley in the 1960s. Titled <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Subversives-Student-Radicals-Reagans-Power/dp/0374257000">Subversives: The FBIs War on Student Radicals and Reagan's Rise to Power</a></i>, the book is the result of 31-years of reporting that began when Rosenfeld was a writer at the <i>Daily Californian</i>, Berkley's student newspaper. In a recent <i><a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/08/21/159373688/student-subversives-and-the-fbis-dirty-tricks">Fresh Air</a> </i>interview, Rosenfeld explains the book's genesis.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I first got interested in the subject when I was a student at the University of California at Berkley in the late 70s. I was a writer for the Daily Californian student newspaper. The Daily Cal had requested some FBI files on Berkley under the freedom of information act. So I looked at those files and I wrote a story about the FBI spying on the Free Speech Movement and on the Vietnam Day committee and they were published back in 1982, but I realized there was far more to the FBI's activities on campus. So I submitted a much larger freedom of information act request. I figured I would get the files in a year or so, write the story and go onto the next project. I had no idea that I was embarking on what would become a 31 year legal odyssey. </blockquote>
The project would take him through five different court cases and $600,000 in legal fees, something Rosenfeld never could have anticipated when he was a 25-year old student journalist.<br />
<br />
Rosenfeld's reporting not only revealed that the Hoover's bureau was a partisan force that ruined the lives on students and administrators, including the university president, who they believed to be politically suspect, but that future President Ronald Reagan was heavily involved in these activities and benefitted personally because of his relationship to the FBI.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Here's a few quotes from <a href="http://archive.dailycal.org/article/8757/kerr_reacts_to_past_and_present_fbi_involvement">two</a> <a href="http://archive.dailycal.org/article/12976/investigative_reporter_named_daily_cal_alum_of_the">stories</a> from the Daily Californian from a decade ago in which Rosenfeld talks about his time at the student paper.<br />
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<blockquote>
"I did some stories when I was with The Daily Cal about some FBI files, and I realize there must be more there. So I submitted a much larger (Freedom of Information Act) request," Rosenfeld says. "I'm glad to be getting the information out to the public. I had no idea it would take this long."<br />
<br />
"I did write some stories of the FBI on campus," Rosenfeld says. "That's how I first got interested in it, and then it became a class project at the journalism school. I was very curious about this history at Berkeley and wanted to know what the government was up to, so I filed this (Freedom of Information Act) request. I think it shed light on a turbulent historic period of time."</blockquote>
<blockquote>
Seth Rosenfeld was a 25-year-old UC Berkeley journalism student and Daily Californian reporter when, in 1981, his editor first handed him several thousand pages of FBI documents to sift through.<br />
<br />
What he found in those files would pitch him headlong into an epic legal battle that would cost the FBI more than $1 million and eventually reveal the agency's covert attempts to thwart Berkeley's Free Speech Movement and topple then-UC President Clark Kerr.<br />
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"I had no idea when I came over to the Daily Cal's office that day in 1981 that I was embarking on a 20-year odyssey," says Rosenfeld, who will be honored for his reporting today as the Daily Cal Alumni of the Year.<br />
<br />
The stories from those original documents filled more than 20 pages of the Daily Cal the next year, detailing how, during the 1960s and '70s, the FBI investigated UC Berkeley faculty and student protesters, as well as their families.But many of the documents had large chunks blacked out. Others pointed toward larger plots, involving President Kerr himself, particularly one note handwritten in FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's jagged scrawl: "I know Kerr is no good."<br />
<br />
"It was all this incredible history," Rosenfeld says. "Not only of the protests, but what the government was doing-a secret history. The more I read, the more interested I got."<br />
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So Rosenfeld began submitting more, broader requests under the Freedom of Information Act for "any and all" FBI files on the people, events and organizations that colored Berkeley during the Cold War era.</blockquote>
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<blockquote>
"Whenever you have the combination of secrecy and power, you have the potential for abuse," he says. "The press has a special duty to shed light on those areas."<br />
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The most seemingly untouchable organizations must still answer for their actions, Rosenfeld says.<br />
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"Even a college newspaper can hold the most powerful government agencies accountable," he says.</blockquote>
Arshy Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17406757528122560238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637164533602365381.post-39161719037907904772012-08-21T17:19:00.001-04:002012-08-21T17:21:39.438-04:00The hotbed press: what the Canadian Senate said about student journalism in 1969<div class="tr_bq">
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfV5PEkhTjhXJxj37xYz4eb3M1-mQVpe6xDcMxytg7Ckx3saGedN4iMhU9M-jzsXGySai6mggpP7r6u0uy4W_-OjFUdxhrJBRPH9WSYaPZwGt6eU3fYRDIcWRPwTHwFIpULnDbkZxheUw/s1600/3946607810_fce574e74a_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="427" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfV5PEkhTjhXJxj37xYz4eb3M1-mQVpe6xDcMxytg7Ckx3saGedN4iMhU9M-jzsXGySai6mggpP7r6u0uy4W_-OjFUdxhrJBRPH9WSYaPZwGt6eU3fYRDIcWRPwTHwFIpULnDbkZxheUw/s640/3946607810_fce574e74a_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The red chamber was not impressed with the student press in '69. (Photo courtesy of jonath/Flickr)</td></tr>
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In 1969, the Canadian Senate's special committee on the mass media put out "<a href="http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CFYQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.albertasenator.ca%2Fflashblocks%2Fdata%2FBT%2520Media%2FDavey%2520Report%2520Vol%25201.pdf&ei=_fgzUL7MEsPJ0QHA84DQAQ&usg=AFQjCNHBSbwBah-Ak_ANLUsm4pKfsq7YOw&sig2=cZSIxQg5EpJnLe1JOSkWPA&cad=rja">Uncertain Mirror</a>," a report examining the state of, well, the mass media in Canada. It was a comprehensive look at the subject, with sections devoted to not just newspapers and public broadcasters, but the ethnic press, "farm press" [whatever that is], the underground press and student papers, which they dubbed "the hotbed press." The next excerpt captures the essence of their message:<br />
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<blockquote>
The Committee devoted part of its research effort and a full day of its hearings to the student press in Canada. We find it reassuring to report that although the rhetoric surrounding this subject has changed in the past few decades, nothing else has. Canada's best student newspapers are still un-professional, shrill, scurrilous, radical, tasteless, inaccurate, obscene, and wildly unrepresentative of their campus audience. They always have been.</blockquote>
Read the rest of the section on the student press after the jump.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><blockquote class="tr_bq">
In 1926, A. J. M. Smith wrote a quatrain that is still quoted:</blockquote>
<blockquote>
"Why is The McGill Daily?"<br />
Asked the pessimist sourly.<br />
"Thank God," said the optimist gaily,<br />
"That it isn't hourly!"</blockquote>
<blockquote>
The <i>McGill Daily </i>is no better loved now than it was then. Canada's student newspapers continue to be the most deplorable, and the most widely deplored segment of the country's press. Even some staffers on university newspapers are alarmed at the prevailing fashion among student editors to ram SDS ideology down their audience's throats. David Chenoweth, managing editor of The <i>McGill Daily </i>at the time of our hearings, told the Committee that members of the student press </blockquote>
<blockquote>
have too often ignored the interests of the general campus audience for the sake of propagandizing along very narrow lines.... The student press has become increasingly ineffective, for it has increasingly alienated its own audience .... </blockquote>
<blockquote>
For while the student press has the fewest "external" controls of all the media operating within Canada today, it has internally enslaved itself through politics, immaturity, and an understandable lack of expertise. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
Right on, Mr. Chenoweth. But the Committee, which is rich in years and wisdom, cannot recall a time when this was not the case. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
As a communications medium, the student press has always been ineffective. But as a training-ground for journalists — Peter Gzowski, Pierre Berton, Stephen Leacock, Ross Munro, John Dauphinee — it has been unexcelled. Newspapers such as <i>The Varsity</i>, The <i>McGill Daily </i>and The <i>Ubyssey </i>have a long tradition of editorial freedom, and an equally long tradition of abusing it. It is no coincidence that the student newspapers that publish under the fewest restraints from student councils or university administrations have produced an astonishing number of excellent journalists. These newspapers, as Mr. Chenoweth reminded us, operate with fewer pressures than does any other segment of the media. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
They are subsidized by their student councils, and thus see no need to "pander to the masses" - that is, give their audience what it wants to read. As a result, a student who has gained control of his university's newspaper may never again find himself in a position of such naked, unrestrained power. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
Later in his career he may have to worry about audiences and advertisers, payrolls and publishers. But for one sweet season he can print exactly what he wants, restrained only by the laws of libel and contempt (which are seldom applied), and the apathy and chronic unreliability of his staff. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
This system often results in perfectly dreadful newspapers. But it also subjects its participants to several years of marvelous journalistic training. They mature in an atmosphere of endless controversy and sometimes learn more about the process of social change than they would in six years of postgraduate political science. A lot of concerned Canadians, from Wayne and Shuster to Patrick MacFadden, have gone through this mill. We doubt that the experience caused permanent harm to them or their audiences. In some cultures, it is widely believed that if a man spends a lot of time in bagnios while young, he will be more sensible about sex in his later years. The Committee does not give blanket endorsement to this principle, but we think it has a certain amount of relevance as far as journalistic training is concerned. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
And so we have no intention of viewing the student press with alarm. Instead, we offer a few observations on current fashions in campus journalism: </blockquote>
<blockquote>
* As usual, campus newsrooms are hotbeds of radicalism. But where, in previous generations, this fervor was directed mainly at events within the university community, it is now directed to "outside" events as well. There also seems to be an attempt to present "inside" and "outside" events as part of the same Big Picture - and in years to come this tendency could exercise a salutary influence on professional journalism. George Russell, bureau chief for Canadian University Press in Ottawa, tried to explain it this way:<br />
We talk about pollution of various kinds rather than the fact that the basis of pollution is a specific relation between man and his environment which is conditioned by specific social relations particular to specific forms of society. such as capitalist society ..•• We talk about the problems of group ownership of portions of the media rather than the fact that sociologically there is a hegemonic control as a means of mental production in communications by society. by class. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
We see the violence in the streets of Quebec rather than attempting to transmit the interconnection to the psychopathology of oppression which triggers that violence .... All this proceeds from the fundamental assumption that there is no inter-conductivity of events.<br />
Translation: conventional newspapers present events as isolated happenings, instead of as individual manifestations of an overall condition. Applied rigorously, this is the Soviet view of journalism - that all observed experience must be interpreted in the light of Marxist-Leninist theory. This shouldn't invalidate the technique: as Mr. Russell pointed out, there is a connection between two such apparently isolated events as the sinking of the oil tanker Arrow and the spendthrift lifestyle of Jackie and Ari Onassis. One of the companies in which Mr. Onassis has interests owned the Arrow - although most news accounts described the vessel as simply of Liberian registry - and his extravagance is in part financed by the kind of economy that allowed the Arrow to go to sea with almost none of its navigational equipment in serviceable condition. If it violates our prevailing canons of "objectivity" to point out that connection, then there is something wrong with our journalistic assumptions. In a number of Canadian city-rooms, young reporters who are alumni of "radical" student newspapers are dismaying their elders by demanding a reassessment of "objectivity." We think the reassessment is long overdue, and we acknowledge the role of the student press in bringing the issue to the fore. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
*Student newspapers are becoming a light industry. There are fifty-five of them publishing, they collect about $600,000 annually in advertising revenue, and they have a readership that must be almost as large as the Canadian university population- about 300,000 in 1969-70. Canadian University Press, the Ottawa-based organization that operates a news service for fifty members, has recently attempted to form a national advertising sales bureau. We hope they succeed, because the more advertising student newspapers attract, the less dependent they are likely to be on student councils and university administrations. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
*The University of British Columbia, York University, University of Waterloo, and McGill publish administration-sponsored newspapers. This appears to be due to the administration view that the student newspapers on these campuses are doing a rotten job of informing their audiences. Some of these publications are excellent, and more are likely to appear in future. Again we approve. Competition never hurt anybody, even on campus.</blockquote>
Arshy Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17406757528122560238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637164533602365381.post-35824175761633600522012-07-10T18:57:00.004-04:002012-07-10T18:58:59.470-04:00The Kitchener Rangers are suing the pants off of a student paper<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLTsVauVtDApL3s0asG_aUZKFLTU-c-LVwhjd0VStlNHDk00ERlBZdQnece_zz5eUdFn-ns1ZLkPQ-ciFPogvTbsnU7J-grsIFgCdtW8aLcKt7o2uJGoNOBd7YcL-bkys3PRWU_XzYtUs/s1600/4542937914_20a0bca1fd_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLTsVauVtDApL3s0asG_aUZKFLTU-c-LVwhjd0VStlNHDk00ERlBZdQnece_zz5eUdFn-ns1ZLkPQ-ciFPogvTbsnU7J-grsIFgCdtW8aLcKt7o2uJGoNOBd7YcL-bkys3PRWU_XzYtUs/s640/4542937914_20a0bca1fd_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's a Kitchener Ranger taking on someone his own size. (Photo courtesy of Tabercil/Flickr Creative Commons)</td></tr>
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Deadspin reports on a Canadian minor league hockey team suing the Michigan Daily, a campus paper at the University of Michigan- Ann Arbor, for libel for reporting that the team offered a player $200,000 cash to stick with the team.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Trouba, who was taken by the Winnipeg Jets last month, was selected in the 2010 OHL Draft by the Kitchener Rangers. Just out of high school, Trouba now has a choice ahead of him: play college hockey for the Michigan Wolverines, or go to the OHL and make some money, but forfeit his NCAA eligibility. What an OHL team would normally do in this case is offer something called an education package: reimbursement of tuition, book, and room and board at any university once the player's OHL career is over. The problem with such packages is that they expire just 18 months after leaving the OHL team, and few players take advantage of them, because they're too busy playing hockey in the NHL or elsewhere, or just have no interest in attending college if they're not able to play. <span style="background-color: white;"> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Last week, <a href="http://www.michigandaily.com/blog/hot-commodity-trouba-5050-between-michigan-ohl">The Michigan Daily reported</a>, via two OHL sources, that Kitchener had offered Trouba $200,000—in cash, not as an education package—to pull out of his Michigan commitment and come play for the Rangers. Kitchener strongly denied the story, and demanded that the Daily retract the story and issue a formal apology. Their Monday deadline passed, and today Kitchener filed a defamation lawsuit in Ontario court against the Daily, seeking $1 million in damages.</blockquote>
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Deadspin continues:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
What follows from here should be interesting. I hope an international paper, even a student paper, isn't compelled to reveal its sources. At the same time, a student paper (rightly or wrongly) doesn't get the same benefit of the doubt as a professional outlet. (For what it's worth, Trouba has affirmed his intentions to attend Michigan.) While I'm not up on Canadian libel law, presumably the burden is still on the plaintiff here. So, thorny issues. It's not a good look to sue a student newspaper, but if the story is actually false, and you're not using court as a scare tactic, a lawsuit is the last and best recourse.</blockquote>
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Unfortunately for the Daily, the suit was filed in Canada, where protections for journalists are considerably weaker than the States. The presumption of innocence doesn't apply in libel cases here — you're guilty until proven innocent.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Regardless, it certainly doesn't look good to sue a student newspaper. In fact, it makes you look kind of like an asshole.</span>Arshy Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17406757528122560238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637164533602365381.post-6686529797036203892012-07-02T23:31:00.002-04:002012-07-04T17:35:50.737-04:00Why Stephen Toope is the new Jimmy Hoffa<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVa2wNe5RIVIZdihBnmX2U8MPMcaYNcLnwEoRsHovI3jGm0GTS0z1fAV5gS1kJklwOj5eJFv6H65Boz_BipFyGnxSTOHvzYm6o2w706E0Os1BuCnYUxaVw2Slp88Kxtc2e1_uVM-hbnWE/s1600/2651660771_6e36744369_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVa2wNe5RIVIZdihBnmX2U8MPMcaYNcLnwEoRsHovI3jGm0GTS0z1fAV5gS1kJklwOj5eJFv6H65Boz_BipFyGnxSTOHvzYm6o2w706E0Os1BuCnYUxaVw2Slp88Kxtc2e1_uVM-hbnWE/s640/2651660771_6e36744369_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Irving K. Barber Library at UBC. (Photo Courtesy of Dennis Tsang/Flickr Creative Commons)</td></tr>
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<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">If you're a student journalist, or a student, or a journalist, or in any way a participant in society, you need to read <a href="http://nplusonemag.com/death-by-degrees">this article</a> in the latest edition of <i>n+1</i>, which outlines how the university has overtaken the union as the second most important institution (after the corporation) in American, and I'd argue Canadian, life.<br /><br />The piece is broad in it's scope, but here's the key message:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Our elaborate, expensive system of higher education is first and foremost a system of stratification, and only secondly — and very dimly — a system for imparting knowledge.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The editors of <i>n+1</i> frame holders of university degrees as members of an enormous cartel.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">For the contemporary bachelor or master or doctor of this or that ... income and social position are acquired through affiliation with a cartel. Those who want to join have to pay to play, and many never recover from the entry fee.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It examines why creditors are so happy to lend to students (you can't bankrupt out of student loans) and why the Tea Party is, at least partially, right about the Ivy League "elites."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It makes a hero out of Clarence Thomas and casts the <i>New Yorker </i>as a den of fools.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It even argues that a proto-university ranking system, a personal boogeyman of mine, forced the creation of the modern medical degree (with the mandatory four-year degree before you even start with any actual medicine) while simultaneously shutting women and black Americans out of the medical profession for decades.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">If not earlier: the AMA owes its authority to America’s most notorious robber barons, who invented philanthropy as we know it by establishing foundations capable of long-term, organized interventions in the country’s political and cultural life. The first foundations poured money into medical schools — but only if those schools followed the example set by Johns Hopkins, which in 1893 had introduced what’s now the standard formula: students attend four years of college, then four years of medical school. Institutions that didn’t follow this model did not get donations, and they also got denounced in a 1910 report sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation. After the Carnegie survey published its “findings,” scores of medical schools — schools whose students could not afford the additional years of study now required, and nearly all of the schools that admitted blacks and women — closed.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And here's the kill-shot:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Introductory economics courses paint “rent-seekers” as gruesome creatures who amass monopoly privileges; credential-seekers, who sterilize the intellect by pouring time and money into the accumulation of permits, belong in the same circle of hell.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This essay has struck me in a way that few ever have. I'm going to collect my thoughts and report back on them, especially on how this applies to journalism education, a subject I've been thinking a lot about.</span></div>Arshy Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17406757528122560238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637164533602365381.post-42530762453304104852012-07-02T18:09:00.000-04:002012-07-04T17:36:29.359-04:00The white world of literary journalism<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">According to The Rumpus, 88 per cent of all books reviewed by the New York Times Book Review are written by white authors. <a href="http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/top-stories/176705/why-88-of-books-reviewed-by-the-new-york-times-are-written-by-white-authors/">Amanda Hess from Poynter</a> compares the discussion on racial representation in literary journalism with the recent focus on the gender disparities in the genre.</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 19px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Most bylines can be instantly sifted by gender, but race is more difficult to parse. The 50-50 gender ratio is easy to quantify, but the racial breakdown of the U.S. population is complex. It took Gay, an assistant professor of English at Eastern Illinois University, 14 weeks to complete her research, employing a student for 16 hours a week to mine authors’ ethnic backgrounds. They couldn’t confirm the race of six authors. Gay plans to execute a similar count for the bylines of The Times’ book reviewers, when she gets the time. And that’s just one publication.</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And here's the really key point:</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 19px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The whiteness of The New York Times Book Review represents the structural inequality of elite journalism stacked on the structural inequality of elite publishing stacked on the structural inequality of income and education in this country. <b>But for women, the system is breaking down at an advanced stage of the game.</b> When female graduates don’t end up in newsrooms, female MFA program stars don’t get book deals, or female editors are not promoted up the chain, publications can be held accountable for that problem. When writers of color are disenfranchised at every stage of the process, everyone is to blame, so no one is.</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">You only have to look so far as the racial composition of student newsrooms, even at very diverse universities, to realize that the problem of representation for people-of-colour in journalism starts right at the beginning.<br /><br />At the paper that I came from, our staff of volunteer writers were fairly representative, but the editorial staff rarely was. In conversations with many other people, we were never able to pin down any concrete answers as to why that was the case, but we tossed around a lot of possibilities.<br /><br />A lot of the time, people immediately assumed that it had to with language ability and that a disproportionate number of people-of-colour on our campus spoke English as a second language. And yet we still had a strong cadre of non-white writers who had no trouble distinguishing between en- and em-dashes.<br /><br />Was it because white people were more drawn to "softer" subject areas such as English and political science, the primordial ooze from where student journalists are created, with people of colour disproportionately represented in the sciences and engineering? That was certainly true to an extent amongst the faculties, but then why were non-white writers who were already interested in journalism less likely to stick around the paper long-term?<br /><br />Another possible cultural explanation would be that even for those non-white writers who wanted to get into media, journalism school was seen as a better route, especially for people who come from a number of East and South Asian backgrounds that place enormous value on possessing credentials.<br /><br />Or perhaps the time commitment involved with being an editor at the paper meant that people who still lived at home in the suburbs (which in Metro Vancouver tend to be less white than the cities) and had to commute long distances were less likely to take that sort of opportunity. <br /><br />The final, and most disturbing idea, was that there was something inherit in the culture of the paper that either turned people of colour off from working there or else we actively and unconsciously created a hostile atmosphere. This could range from a collective love of booze that people from certain background might not share, or else a system where the people in charge would mentor people like them to take over their roles. <br /><br />The likely answer is, as with all things, going to be more complicated than a single factor. But it does demonstrate that the problems with journalism starts at the beginning. And this of course isn't even getting into the many issues that writers of colour will face when they attempt to enter the workforce or try and move up the ladder.</span>Arshy Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17406757528122560238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637164533602365381.post-18993335477142189512012-05-15T10:41:00.001-04:002012-07-04T17:38:05.843-04:00Is journalist the best or the worst job?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2kKWG1q-u_cH8wI87JwZ38zlkWUMsZo89GEtiK_G0Y8G3wzw_qCS1C-oI4RTjaWZBQyWpwFU4n9DiojuRhORLsTGPZSa1V8qKG5NXszAmdqUK2sncNiau4tQqfRMyNV8XvZ0Bx7HY-K0/s1600/ana.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2kKWG1q-u_cH8wI87JwZ38zlkWUMsZo89GEtiK_G0Y8G3wzw_qCS1C-oI4RTjaWZBQyWpwFU4n9DiojuRhORLsTGPZSa1V8qKG5NXszAmdqUK2sncNiau4tQqfRMyNV8XvZ0Bx7HY-K0/s1600/ana.jpg" /></a></div>
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Would you rather be a newspaper reporter or to be a taxi driver? What about a meter reader? Dishwasher? </div>
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According to <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304587704577335703058909284.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLE_Video_Top#project%3DJobRankings2012%26articleTabs%3Dinteractive">rankings produced by careercast.com</a>, all of these jobs are better than being working in the newspaper biz. In fact, ranked at 196 out of 200, the only careers that newspaper reporter edges out are oil rig worker, enlisted military soldier(!), dairy farmer and lumberjack. Apparently this is a function of long hours, shit pay and stressful deadlines. But something seems off here...</div>
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Luckily for us, the good people at Forbes.com let us know why being a reporter is in fact <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2012/04/16/forget-that-survey-heres-why-journalism-is-the-best-job-ever/">totally awesome</a>.</div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 24px; text-align: left;">Remember how great college was? Every semester brought new topics, new professors, new ideas. Your brain got a workout. You could feel yourself getting smarter. Journalism is like that. You’re always building new mental muscles. You start out on a new beat or a new story as ignorant as a child, and within a few weeks or months you’re an expert. Wait, you didn’t like college? Don’t be a journalist. Problem solved.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 24px; text-align: left;">Here are a few things I’ve done at FORBES in the name of journalism: </span><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2011/12/07/why-poker-is-better-than-business-school/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">gotten a lesson in Texas Hold ‘Em</a><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 24px; text-align: left;"> from a former pro poker player; </span><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2012/03/17/human-demo-new-yorker-cartoonist-matthew-diffee-shows-how-to-be-creative/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">watched a cartoonist for The New Yorker</a><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 24px; text-align: left;"> sketch comic ideas; </span><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2011/09/08/packers-ceo-mark-murphy-on-the-nfls-concussion-problem/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">gone jogging on the turf at Lambeau Field</a><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 24px; text-align: left;"> with the president of the Green Bay Packers; </span><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2011/11/09/bankers-boycotting-mario-batali-over-hitler-metaphor/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">started a boycott against Mario Batali</a><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 24px; text-align: left;">; got the creators of Words With Friends to </span><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2012/03/15/words-with-friends-creators-say-infuriating-flaw-is-a-feature-not-a-bug/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">explain why their game is so annoying</a><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 24px; text-align: left;">. I’m sure waiters meet a lot of interesting people, too, but if they ask a lot of obnoxious questions they risk getting stiffed on the tip. I get a raise.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 24px; text-align: left;">Tracking down a scoop on deadline, when the newsroom is buzzing with dozens of people doing the same — it’s an adrenaline rush. Plenty of jobs in this world offer the prospect of unrelieved boredom. I’d rather have one that gets my heart pumping.</span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 24px; text-align: left;">Reporting is rife with chances to get up from your desk, get out of the office and stretch your legs. Don’t like staring at a glowing screen all day? Meet a few sources for coffee, do some man-on-the-street interviews or go cover a trade show. It’s often when you’re playing semi-hooky from the office that you’ll get your best stuff.</span> </blockquote>
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Yup. Journalism is pretty great.<br />
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(Photo Courtesy of Geoff Lister/The Ubyssey)<br />
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<br /></div>Arshy Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17406757528122560238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637164533602365381.post-35348528117086717762012-05-14T23:35:00.002-04:002012-05-14T23:35:18.839-04:00Should journalists report on eating disorders the way they report suicides?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN-MHOxkOttxT3Hc0n95pQqlvdutxTr0kY2n6b3AZtV1GM_TygHMA4SPxOeCBQL1gQ0FtBGHfKM_G0v6cfIaOBX5_k90cKYHrzk-3HTBVmVL1xA7ojwT_Ypitc21SN1_x75wPeMwQQkxI/s1600/eating-disorder-15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN-MHOxkOttxT3Hc0n95pQqlvdutxTr0kY2n6b3AZtV1GM_TygHMA4SPxOeCBQL1gQ0FtBGHfKM_G0v6cfIaOBX5_k90cKYHrzk-3HTBVmVL1xA7ojwT_Ypitc21SN1_x75wPeMwQQkxI/s320/eating-disorder-15.jpg" width="269" /></a></div>
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The <a href="http://www.rrj.ca/m22692/">Ryerson Review of Journalism looks</a> at the ethics of reporting on eating disorders. Some of the highlights:<br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> “There are standards when it comes to reporting on suicide, but when it comes to eating disorders we’re still blaming the victim.”</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">“To me, it’s like providing suicide tools for someone who is suicidal when you report about someone’s diet. You’re not reporting on how someone committed suicide because you don’t want to give anyone who may be in that framework any more ideas; you should be doing the same thing with eating disorders.”</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">For example, when writing a story about an eating disorder that includes details about that individual’s calorie consumption, how much weight she lost, and what she did in order to lose that much weight, journalists must also describe the effects that lifestyle had on her physical, mental, and emotional health; what it did to the people around her; why this person behaved the way she did; and how eating disorders develop and their long-term effects. The same rules should be followed when reporting on any health issue that can or used to be stigmatized like suicide, schizophrenia, depression, or cancer.</span></blockquote>Arshy Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17406757528122560238noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5637164533602365381.post-2468284144096517902012-03-13T02:11:00.000-04:002012-03-13T02:29:43.531-04:00Fairy tale journalismThe Guardian promotes their open journalism initiative with a fantastically creative look at the three little pigs.
<blockquote>This advert for the Guardian's open journalism, screened for the first time on 29 February 2012, imagines how we might cover the story of the Three Little Pigs in print and online. Follow the story from the paper's front page headline, through a social media discussion and finally to an unexpected conclusion</blockquote>
<iframe width="600" height="338" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/vDGrfhJH1P4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Arshy Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17406757528122560238noreply@blogger.com