You did it, you bastards! You finally blew yourselves up!
Your support of student journalism is what will kill us all
Jesse Beach, Volunteer Staff
I suppose I should be thanking you. In addition to the $6 that you contribute to the Manitobanas part of your student fees, by picking up this paper and by reading this article, you are helping to support and assist our small paper in bringing news and opinion, sports and culture to thousands of students across our campus. However, I am reluctant to thank someone who will also contribute so callously towards not only the end of student journalism, but to university life and, in turn, civilization itself as we know it.
Allow me to explain.
One of the many purposes of a newspaper is to report the news; to make the people aware of events and happenings of interest both locally and around the world. However, newspapers and other sources of media are also businesses. They have owners and employees who all work to ensure the success and continued prosperity of the business to generate profit for all those involved. This effect of capitalism has resulted in sources of news media becoming inherently biased in their reporting. Obligations and debt to vast corporations that make up the ownership of media sources have created a prejudice in the reporting of the news, and worse, traditional sources of news have devolved into the public relations departments for wealthy corporations.
Hence the beauty of a student owned and operated news publication. With little to no corporate dependency and a mandate that differs from that of a traditional news source student journalism may unabashedly report news and opinion without any regard to the consequences of private ownership. This enables student journalists to accomplish the nobler, though less commonly known, aspect of journalism — the intellectual stimulation of the masses.
Although the reporting of the news is supposed to be carried out in an unbiased manner, in any news article or opinion piece there will inevitably be aspects of the author’s prejudices which find their way in. These prejudices are the driving force behind the educational power of journalism. Anytime a reader agrees or disagrees with a reporters take on a particular event, it causes an emotion. These emotions manifest themselves in discussion and debate among the readers, contributing to the thought development of the paper’s readership.
However, student journalism does not have the capacity to educate that larger news mediums do. The significantly smaller readership of student newspapers compared to that of the Winnipeg Free Press for example, reduces the amount of influence the Manitobanhas; and therefore, our ability to inform the masses which, as I have said, can spark debate and thought in the reader is also diminished. As student journalists do not have the luxury of a large news outlet in which to voice our beliefs, we must, in order to invoke thought and draw attention to our meagre operation, offer something that larger news mediums cannot — genuine, “apolitically correct” opinion. Original thought that is not worried about being politically correct or affecting an owner’s reputation, but triggers positive or negative emotions in the reader, provoking him or her to think about that feeling and develop that emotion in to an intelligent response.
Because it is difficult to trigger a genuine, powerful response in a positive manner, student journalism occasionally attempts to incite emotions of the negative persuasion within the reader. As a result of the small news medium to which we are assigned, we may present our views or opinions in an intentionally biased language in an attempt to spark debate among readers. This is not to say that we do not believe in our writing, but as I have said, journalism is, in part, a teaching method. We do not write opinion pieces in an attempt to convince you of our own opinions, we write to inspire people to think, question, and argue. We are not, by writing one-sided views of our opinions, trying to reform the mind of the reader — but to expand it.
However, this is where your ignorance introduces itself, inciting the inevitable decline of civilization as we have come to enjoy it. Admittedly, as student journalists we attempt to provoke thought and emotion in you, the reader, by upsetting your sensibilities a little bit. But you, as the reader, are not co-operating. In fact, you’re being down right rude. Every week the Manitobanintroduces new, one-sided, completely biased views of every contemporary idea and event we can think of, even constructing a master debate that argues both sides of an opinion, its sole official purpose being to equally offend everyone on campus. And you, as the reader, don’t even send us hate mail, detailing how terrible we really are! The Manitobanreceives little to nothing in terms of letters, e-mails, and hate mail; nothing to indicate we are inducing thought and sparking debate among you.
The only response we can provide, as responsible journalists, is to come up with more “thought-inducing topics,” as we have come to call them. The stories will become more flagrant, more obviously radical, all in an effort to invoke a response from the student body. Eventually the university itself will intervene, stamping on our rights of free speech and forcing censorship rules on our student organization. Then, and only then, after you refused to comment on our articles, will you finally rise up to our defence. But it will be too late. As university campuses are typically breeding grounds for liberal-minded young people to gather, we will riot against the university for trampling what we perceive to be our guaranteed rights.
This effect will resonate across the nation and, within a few years, university campuses all over Canada will have to be shut down, all in a futile effort to end the riots and protests that have spread as a result of student ignorance. Decades will pass and, without institutions of higher learning in place, our country will degenerate into a brutal, medieval society based purely on the immediate gratification of our desires. The United States, sensing our weakness, will eventually invade in an effort to raid our natural resources, which have vastly depleted in the United States by this time. Nations worldwide will jump to our aid and, within days of the U.S. attack, a new world war is declared, every nation against the United States. Some seek to end the perceived American domination of the world, some just want their own piece of North America after every thing is said and done.
This is not some delusional, pessimistic fantasy; it has already begun to occur. It was only Nov. 14 of this year that an article to the Manitoban, contributed by a fellow volunteer staff member, was not printed because of petty libel — whoever thought a free press would complain about that? Locked in a war of words over a controversial topic, an article was not published for the first time in recent memory. Mark my words, much like the date of the apparently arbitrary assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the day an article did not appear in the Manitoban, will go down as the beginning a world war. Free speech only works if everything is to be submitted under it. If one thing is acceptable to write, then it all is. The forced censorship of an article provides a terrifying precedent for the future of this paper and, as I have detailed, for the rest of civilization. Though the effort of typing up a simple email may sound appalling to you, the positive effects it may generate might be worth considering.
So, though I would love to thank you for the support you have shown the Manitobanby picking up this paper; the truth of the matter is you’re going to kill us all.
Jesse Beach is a fourth-year English student.
