Sensationalism and Student Media

Change Happens has a post about a student paper covering a rape trial via liveblogging. As the comments show, it is really walking a fine line between exploiting someone's suffering and covering violence against women. These kinds of incidents are part of a continuous conflict between activist progressives and student media. Students involved in media are learning a craft and take on a media-centric ideology. It is common for such students to believe in free speech and the importance of debate. If there is a problem, the solution is to write a letter. If that letter is ignored, the solution is to write another letter.

The activist left has something of a problem with this kind of thinking. It consumes a lot of energy and letters of reply often don't have as much of an impact as the original articles. To protest such things also results in a political backlash, as evidenced by the Farrago controversies of earlier this semester. If progressive activists ask for discriminatory material to not be published, they are readily accused of censorship. If progressive activists use any power or influence they have to compel the non-publication or retraction of discriminatory articles, then they get hammered. It isn't a very comfortable situation to be in, especially in Australian student unions, where the student paper is published by the union and the media office is just next door to other union offices.

For students in media, the behaviour of progressive activists seems inappropriate. They might be protesting too frequently, spending their time monitoring a publication instead of doing what they're supposed to be doing and fighting for various important outcomes. The students at the Columbia Spectator who are liveblogging a rape trial if asked about what they're doing, might suggest that they are just putting out news in the public interest. The horrors of sexual violence are made plain and clear as day. This is a good thing right?

The strange thing is that in many cases, student journalists and editors are themselves socially progressive. In elections they might deal with progressive factions. They will publish progressively minded articles without hesitation. The progressive activists are not, at least in principle, against free speech, but just protective. Their gains are hard won and easily lost.

It is hard for there to be a resolution to this conflict without someone backing down or feeling like they are giving up something. Sometimes, editors might feel that they have to assert their independence. They will have to refuse to be relentlessly policed and directed by outside forces. Neither should activists be confied to writing letters that are all too readily ignored.

Dealing with and celebrating difference is great in theory, but not so easy in real life. Political expediency in both editor and activist is truly a virtue.