Are students justified in banning the sale of newspapers on campus?
Summary
Fireworks are to be expected in City University's Oliver Thompson lecture theatre next Tuesday as four speakers to debate the student union motions in some universities to prevent the Daily Mail, Daily Express and the Sun being sold on campus. On the panel will be:
- Neil Wallis - Former deputy editor of the News of the World who spent five years as editor of the Sunday People.
- Tom Slater - Deputy editor of Spiked Online
- Liz Gerard - Former Times night editor who runs the excellent SubScribe blog
- Miqdaad Versi - Assistant secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain.
The meeting will be chaired by City University student: Ghazzala Zubair
City's student's union claims that the three papers had run Islamphobic stories and also "actively scapegoat the working classes they so proudly claim to represent". The students also claimed that "freedom of speech should not be used as an excuse to attack the weakest and poorest members of society" and that the titles publish stories that are "inherently sexist".
City's student's union claims that the three papers had run Islamphobic stories and also "actively scapegoat the working classes they so proudly claim to represent". The students also claimed that "freedom of speech should not be used as an excuse to attack the weakest and poorest members of society" and that the titles publish stories that are "inherently sexist".
Key Statistics
- Fewer than 200 of the universities 19.500 student population attended the meeting
- November last year members of City University's student's union voted to ban the sale of Sun, Daily Mail and Daily Express on campus.
My Opinion
I can see the students general reason for wanting to ban the sale of the newspapers on campus. However, with the ever expanding developments that NDM brings with newspapers moving their production online banning the newspapers on campus won't do anything as where ever students turn there will be reference or a copy of the newspapers that they have banned the sale of on campus. Newspaper articles will be published in print, on their websites, through social media etc. Given this, simply banning the newspapers on campus won't do anything because the newspapers can get into circulation around the university through other means aside from print their titles will always be in circulation in some way shape or form. Also banning the newspapers on City's campus and potentially considering other universities to do the same will not stop newspapers publishing such titles (e.g: Islamphobic content) in the future as whatever is deemed newsworthy by the gatekeepers at media institutions will be put into circulation.
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