Student journalism is journalism—and student politicians and student-association bureaucrats need to recognize that

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      When I was studying broadcast journalism at the B.C. Institute of Technology, I had a wonderful training ground for print.

      It was a newspaper called the Link and it was owned by the school's student association.

      Fortunately, the Link had a courageous young publisher in those days, Don Wright, who went on to become the Western Canada and the Territories activism coordinator for Amnesty International.

      Even though Wright was an employee of the student association, he wasn't afraid to run stories that were critical of his employer.

      At that time, I didn't understand this nuance or how important publishers were in ensuring that hard-hitting stories reached the public.

      Wright never interfered as a trio of journalism students—myself, James Roberts, and David Mattattall (father of the former Zoo Zhop owner of the same name)—probed the shortcomings of the student association.

      We discovered that student executives were allowed to charge an unlimited number of drinks to the student association in the student-owned pub. There were also damning reports about a federally funded job going to the student president and a discretionary account under the control of the student president. It turned out that he bought a computer with student funds.

      The vice president of student affairs at the time, Pat Carroll, objected to some of the coverage by writing a letter to the editor to the Link.

      He didn't attempt to shut down the student association's newspaper. He merely complained that the elected executive's positive initiatives weren't getting their due. 

      Carroll later became president when his predecessor resigned.

      The Link has a tradition of muckraking.

      I point this out because the Link is once again embroiled in a scandal, and not one that will bring any pride to the student association.

      Two students, Jessica Fedigan and Lindsey Howe, were suspended from writing for the publication—it's now a magazine—after they leaked an email from Dan Post, who is the publications manager. (Post is in the position once held by the courageous Don Wright.)

      In the email, Post suggested that student journalists downplay how the institution had not come forward in a timely manner to warn that a voyeur on the Burnaby campus had been arrested. Post's memo was reported on the campus radio station run by broadcasting students.

      That's when Fedigan and Howe they were put on paid administrative leave. (Previously, it incorrectly stated here that they were "fired", which isn't the case.)

      The student association president, Dylan Smith, did not condemn the decision to suspend the student journalists. Nor did he indicate any desire to suspend the publications manager for trying to throttle student journalism by suggesting this was a "kind of non-news story".

      [Post has maintained that he did not attempt to censor the writers or encourage them to downplay "this very serious matter".]

      BCIT president Kathy Kinloch finally came clean to the students about the campus voyeur on February 2.

      If Don Wright had less backbone and if the BCIT student association executive of the day had a more authoritarian bent, a similar fate could have befallen our group of muckrakers. Mattattall went on to work in news and produce videos; Roberts later had great success as a CBC Radio and CBC TV news producer.

      The type of punishment meted out to Fedigan and Howe could have discouraged any of us from ever working in the media before our careers had even begun.

      This incident at BCIT serves as yet another reminder that student politicians and student-association bureaucrats need regular reminders that student journalism is journalism. And it's constitutionally protected under Section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

      UBC student politicians tried to muzzle their paper

      Back in 1994 and 1995, the UBC Alma Mater Society went through a similar bit of nonsense.

      The esteemed Ubyssey was shut down after 74 consecutive years of publication after its sex issue highlighted sadomasochism and one of its editorials advised how to avoid paying transit fares. Of course, the Ubyssey was also aggressively covering the antics of the student association, which owns the paper.

      There were unconfirmed allegations at the time that the campus administration was leaning on the Alma Mater Society to take action.

      Then Straight staffer and a former Ubyssey editor, Verne McDonald, wrote an article linking shortcomings in the Society Act to why the student association and the student paper "find themselves yoked together like a horse and a pig on the pole of a constitutional cart".

      "The usual practice for the past 75 years has been for each to ignore the polite legal fiction that ties them together and let the Ubyssey pig wander off to blindly dig up its occasional acorns while the council horse carries on the business of turning the students' green into manure," McDonald wrote in his inimitable style. "This is the way it works in society as a whole, and, just as the university is like a self-contained city within a city, the AMS is a further subset of the world at large.

      "It has its municipal-style council, its external affairs, its small-business sector, its community organizations, its recreational and sporting groups," McDonald continued in his article. "And it has a newspaper."

      The same is true at BCIT and countless other postsecondary institutions across North America. And this is likely why this won't be the last time we hear complaints of censorship when student journalists decide they want to conduct serious journalism on campus.

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