Student newspapers satirize cartoon controversy
Tessa Vanderhart Staff
Student newspapers across Canada, like media across the world, have had to make tough editorial decisions about the Jyllands-Posten cartoons.
Some, notably the Strand, the Gateway and the Peak, have chosen to run editorial cartoons on the subject of these highly contentious cartoons. One paper, UPEI’s the Cadre, even chose to print the original cartoons.
Though it appears that students are understandably divided on the issue, editors of these papers — many of them members of the Canadian University Press (CUP), of which the Manitoban is a member — expressed very little regret at what readers of student newspapers across the country have been exposed to in satirical cartoons and editorials.
Nick Ragaz, the managing editor at the Strand, the student newspaper of Victoria College at the University of Toronto, explained his newspaper’s decision to print a cartoon depicting Jesus kissing Mohammed in the “tunnel of tolerance.”
“The question that we had was: do we not publish this? And if not, how do we justify this?” said Ragaz.
The cartoon was a volunteer contribution, passed along from the U of T’s larger student paper, the Varsity.
The Strand considered the offensive nature of the cartoon, but in the end, found “no reasons not to publish” and has received both positive and negative feedback. A letter from the student council accused the paper of an “act of hate” and concerns have also been voiced by the Muslim students’ association on campus.
“Since nobody wants to pull the papers off the stands . . . . I don’t regret it,” he said.
Rather, Ragaz said, the cartoon was published in a genuine effort to promote tolerance, if occasionally misinterpreted.
Both the Canadian Press (CP) and the Toronto Star have written stories about the Strand’s cartoon, CP terming him “defiant and unapologetic.”
But the media attention garnered by the Strand doesn’t compare with attention paid to the Cadre. The University of PEI student newspaper reprinted the Jyllands-Posten cartoons, the first newspaper in Canada to do so.
Cadre editor-in-chief Ray Keating said that the cartoons were printed under the newspaper’s mandate to inform students.
He added that the cartoons were published with the support of the student union, but when the university administration banned distribution of the papers on campus, legal action was threatened. The Cadre is owned by the UPEI students’ union.
“Once we were censored, then it became a free speech issue,” said Keating.
Though they disagree, Keating said the student union and the Cadre are still on good terms. Some councillors later expressed a desire to have been consulted before the issues were pulled from the stands.
Daniel Kaszor, the editor-in-chief of the Gateway at the University of Alberta, made the editorial decision to publish a cartoon along with an editorial on Feb. 7.
In the Gateway’s cartoon, a man in a turban yells, “How dare you say that Muslims are terrorists? I should kill you for that!” in response to: “Freedom of the press means freedom to be a racist chump.”
And while Kaszor knew the cartoon itself was somewhat offensive, the Gateway received no response from it, except garnering an interview from the Edmonton Sun.
“The U of A campus is sort of a strange one, where we can probably get away with murder and no one would notice,” said Kaszor.
He explained that the “hyperbolistic and sort of crazy” cartoon was clearly satire.
“We haven’t really taken a side so much as commented on what was satirized,” he said.
William Wolfe-Wylie, the Atlantic Bureau Chief for CUP, writes a weekly commentary for the Argosy at Mount Allison University. On Feb. 9 the Argosy ran a point/counterpoint on the comics.
“I still don’t think that not publishing the cartoons is a freedom of the press issue. Especially when compared to the ‘professional press,’ I think student newspapers have more freedom than they would like to admit — we can publish pretty much anything at all and get away with it,” said Wolfe-Wylie.
Not only are the original cartoons readily available online, but the issue has become so contentious that Wolfe-Wylie contends that republishing them is less informative than provocative.
“The publication of further cartoons, such as those in the Strand and the Gateway are a contribution to the debate and are a great idea. If student papers wish to contribute to the debate, then an editorial explaining their stance will go further than further incitement.”
Dave Weatherall, the national bureau chief for the CUP, said that each paper has to decide for itself where to stand on the comics.
Still, he noted, there is a reason that student papers have picked up on drawing cartoons themselves.
“The fact that you can write about, but not draw Mohammed probably renders the cartoons more effective,” Weatherall said.
“A little cartoon is very powerful.”
Before circulating the Gateway’s editorial cartoon to CUP papers through its wire service, Weatherall asked elected regional bureau chiefs what they thought. Slightly more than half recommended that the cartoon be shared.
Dock Currie, the opinions editor at the Peak at Simon Fraser University, wanted to run the Jyllands-Posten cartoons, but a last-minute publishing decision led the Peak to instead publish a silhouette of a man with a bomb in his turban.
“I don’t think it provokes any insightful debate; most of the things . . . . about Islamic militancy have been said,” Currie opined.
But, he noted, there is still a reason to publish offensive materials in the Western world.
“Legitimate satire shouldn’t have to worry about being sanctioned or censored by the internal tenets of any religion, or any ‘ism’ at all,” said Currie.
“Student papers should be running stuff like this,” he said. “If you have autonomy from your [student union] and you’re not using it, you’re a waste of paper, in my mind.”
