putting mit to good use
Several weeks ago the Western's student run newspaper "The Gazette" printed an April fool's spoof edition. While this is a tradition with the Gazette, this year they seemed to push the boundaries. The spoof article featured a rather offensive article titled "Labia Majora Carnage." Assumedly written as a form of satire, the article's premise was a Take Back the Night March led by Western's Women's Issues Network.
For a copy of the article: http://vermicious-nat.livejournal.com/94485.html
To my knowledge the issue was written by a bunch of drunk Gazette writers who thought they were coming up with something clever and satirical. Furthermore, the writers who wrote the articles published them under pseudonyms. Even with only a few years of MIT under my belt I have come to realize that the writers who love ignorant jokes also tend to hide behind anonymity. If you really believe in the words that you wrote and that what you were trying to do is indeed valid then you would attach your name to it. Instead, the Gazette seems to be taking an 'it was a joke, deal with it' attitude until recently when they finally published an apology. After I heard about this apology, I was invited by a Gazette editor to join a Facebook group entitled "I Enjoyed the Western Gazette Spoof Issue." The group claims that feminist activists took the article out of proportion and that the controversy surrounding the spoof issue is ridiculous and laughable. Take a stand Gazette! Don't tell me it was a joke and then backpedal and then backpedal again. There is no journalistic responsibility in this. The newspaper is supposed to cover daily events on campus and within London that are relevant to student life. Now with all the controversy surrounding the issue, members of the Gazette next year need to deal with the problem and anyone who's name is associated with it will have an even more difficult time proving their journalistic integrity when trying to find a job in the future.
Ultimately the members of the Gazette thought that this ignorant article was a good idea, if this is something that they continue to stand behind then stand up, tell me who you are and be a real journalist - I assume this is a career you want in the future. While there will always be controversy with any form of media, the members of the Gazette have handled the issue poorly. National Canadian news networks have covered the issue including the CBC, Toronto Star, CanWest and SunMedia. Clearly there is an issue of equality within this country that is at hand here and deserves closer examination. Personally, I find their satire ignorant and their ways of handling the controversy laughable. Good luck in the future Gazette, seems this 'spoof' edition may have messed things up for your staff in the future.
posted by *juLia @ 11:07 AM
3 Comments:
first of all its "presumably"
second off, as I understand it, the issue was meant to be as offensive as possible. The entire point of satire is to point out the blatantly absurd ideologies in our society. The spoof issue attacked almost every walk of life at western, and the WIN members were the only ones who caused a fuss (them and a lone homo).
Point is they did make a big deal out of nothing. There were more effective ways to start a dialouge with the gazette about the issue it had. Instead they decided this would be a good oportunity to get some media attention and they got what they wanted.
Now this does not go to say that the Gazette was not in the wrong. Far from it. I feel that the Gazette was poorly run this year and that its ambitions to be bolder and more professional alienated much of the campus. Its for that reason that as soon as an oportunity came up to slam them, someone took it.
I am glad that WIN stood up for the rights of women and made it clear that rape is not something to be joked about. I do not approve of their methods of going about that. Its like if you and heather were having a fight and she put a flag outside that said "Julia's a bitch" sure you might resolve the problem quicker, but what really got resolved?
Please understand what my beef is here. I didn't defend the actions of the WIN anywhere in this little rant, but what I did do was dispute the Gazette's publication of the article AND their way of handling the issues. First of all the article made light about rape issues and used scrambled names of individuals who are members of the WIN. Strike one. The article was not funny, it was ignorant and inappropriate. The WIN's way of handling the situation was blown way out of proporation -- town hall meetings included. However my main concern is that they stand behind pseudonyms and tell me to deal with it. Address the issue. If you make the decision to print something controversial then be ready to defend it completely, back pedaling not included. The people who want to work for the Gazette next year now have to deal with the mess and suffer the consequences of an ignorant issue. I agree with you that the issue was blown out of proporation, i never defended their ways of approaching the article but I do think that their argument was valid and needed to be properly addressed
I guess the thing is that i dont expect a lot from the gazette. In fact they handled it better than I thought they would have. Which leads to another point. the reason they faired so well is because they came at it as a paper and not 'this writer was out of line.'
let us put this behind us though. GO FRIGGIN STUDY
ps if u wanna update my link on ur page for my new one. LOVE
Post a Comment
<< Home