Western’s response to Gazette “spoof”

Apr 11th, 2007
Gazette ’spoof’ angers readers

By Bob Klanac

The student Gazette’s annual April Fool’s Day parody issue has drawn widespread anger for comments about women and other groups, and the condemnation of University of Western Ontario President Paul Davenport.

In a statement released Wednesday, Davenport said he was offended by material in the issue and he will be looking for ways to ensure the Gazette and University Students’ Council, owner of the paper, prevent such articles from appearing in the future.

“These articles have taken us back in time and have tainted the image of our university,” said Davenport. “The negative and offensive message of the Gazette issue strikes at the heart of our efforts to recruit and retain a diverse community of students, faculty, and staff.”

Davenport’s complete statement can be viewed at uwo.ca/pvp.

The annual parody issue has drawn a flood of letters, phone calls and emails to the Gazette, USC, university administrators and the university’s Equity Services office which has been asked by numerous persons to investigate the situation.

According to Davenport, “I have received a large number of e-mails and phone calls expressing disgust with the content of the Gazette. Many of these are from students themselves, who have responded in a very vocal and heartfelt manner to let their newspaper know that there is no humour in attacking the safety of women and the dignity of gay people.”

One article in particular, entitled Labia Majora Carnage, appeared to lampoon the Take Back The Night walk and included a reference to London Police Chief Murray Faulkner threatening to rape a female in the aim of ‘teaching a lesson’.

While the Gazette did not place the article online, it was picked up and forwarded across the country as the subject of numerous blogs. The controversy has also been picked up by national and local media.

Gazette Editor-in-Chief Ian Van Den Hurk said he regrets what happened.

“I know and everyone in this office knows what we were trying to convey,” he says. “Maybe because we knew what our intentions were, that was why we missed it.”

Van Den Hurk says that when Gazette staff wrote an editorial last week about then simmering concerns, suggesting that people ‘get over it’, the paper hadn’t received much of a response.

“Then over the Easter weekend, the letters started pouring in,” he says. “That was really upsetting. A sexual assault isn’t something we would take lightly.

“We knew with this issue that we would offend someone but we had no intention of hurting anybody. We feel sorry about that.”

University Students’ Council President Fab Dolan finds the situation “unfortunate on many different grounds.”

“My focus is to ensure that we have a fast and effective response that ensures the Gazette’s accountability to students but also its editorial freedom from the USC,” he says.

“The other concern is responding to students that have contacted me to assure them that we are dealing with the problem. My focus is making sure that this doesn’t happen again.”

To that end, Dolan and Van Den Hurk have compiled recommendations to ensure greater accountability. A study group will review issues including a process for removing an editor from office, sensitivity training, reviewing the publishing schedule, and the overall quality of the paper.

Whether that action is sufficient remains an area for discussion.

Davenport says the administration plans to be involved in the reforms.

“The administration, led by Vice-President Gitta Kulczycki and Vice-Provost Roma Harris, will be working with the USC and consulting with others to find ways to ensure that this kind of unacceptable journalism does not appear in the future,” he said.

For Van Den Hurk, part of the solution is injecting greater student involvement into the paper.

“The biggest issue we’ve talked about is involving students more. When we get a couple of letters in we don’t know what percentage of students that view represents.

“By having a forum and study group we’ll get more student input. People think we have an agenda but we’re just students like everyone else.”

Dolan believes that reducing the paper’s weekly publishing schedule from four issues to two will help the editorship produce a better paper with more care and scrutiny.

“They don’t have enough time to breathe, let alone do proper reporting, let alone doing checking on the stories that they put out,” says Dolan.

For Van Den Hurk, greater accountability has been on the table for some time.

“I am an employee of the USC,” he says. “I should be accountable to the students, it’s their newspaper. We’ve talked about mirroring the policy for the USC president. I think it’s a great idea.”

Dolan says that the students and members of the community have made themselves heard on this issue.

“Even if we didn’t step in, the Gazette would be making changes to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

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Public meeting

Western’s Caucus on Women’s Issues has scheduled a town hall meeting for Friday, April 13 at 7 p.m. in University College’s Conron Hall. The topic: ‘The April 1st Gazette “spoof” issue, Rape Culture and the Chilly Climate at UWO’. Organizers have invited students, faculty, staff and interested London community members to attend.

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The link to President Davenport’s entire statement can be found below.
uwo.ca/pvp

Source: The Western News