Have you ever thought that perhaps something might be internally wrong with SUSU rather than blaming sabbaticals?
Jamie - 14 years ago
Dave I can assure you that the whole letter was published on the blog. There was an article that only used a section of the letter as reference but as Pete said, bar the 'Kind regards, etc' the letter was posted in full.
I'm pretty sure I speak for the whole Scene team when I say that they would post any response in full.
Pete - 14 years ago
Just checked back to the letter we published as a response to the Women's Day complaints ( http://wessexblog.com/2010/04/16/union-responds-to-womens-day-complaints/ ), and the only thing missing from it are the words "kind regards, sophie paterson". I'm sure you'll agree that omitting that doesn't add up to 'outrageous behaviour' or show bias against the union. I'd be interested to know where you heard we only published half of the letter.
Pete - 14 years ago
The blog and the wessex scene are seperate. The editorial team this year created the blog basically as a side project to the work we've done in the paper. It's not affiliated to SUSU and the wessex scene is, so for legal reasons its important that we distinguish clearly between the two.
With elections that got the whole of page 3 and a section on the front. I'm pretty sure the blog covered it to. The only reason why it didn't go on the front was because it happened to be at the same time as the cuts to halls wardens and sports studies were hitting the uni, and we felt that was more pressing news. You could argue that point either way and I think we'd have have been criticised by someone whichever story we led with.
The response to the Women's Day poster was published in full, at least everything I recieved (albeit third hand) went up on the blog unedited. I can't really answer for the AGM article given that I didn't write it, but I wouldn't say its poor to the extent of justifying such all round criticism of the entire paper.
I'm not a socialist, but I am left wing as I said above. I wouldn't be surprised if you picked that up from my articles, politics editor leaves room for a certain amount of comment as well as reporting of events. I don't restrict the views of other writers in my section, so I don't see any reason to restrict mine.
The journalism this year may not have been professional (perhaps not too surprising, since we're not professionals), but we've achieved a lot this year that I don't think should be dismissed... Katrina implies above that we focus on the negative points to the exclusion of the obvious positives. Perhaps you are guilty of the same?
Dave - 14 years ago
couple of points Pete: SUSU elections got one small page of coverage which was massively disappointing considering it is the main event that affects students that are members of their union of the whole year.
I don't agree with Kitty that the paper is right wing, however it is clear from a lot of your articles that you are a socialist (I am assuming i am correct here) and although there is nothing wrong with that in practice, it is not preferable to have it noticable in the paper, be it accidental or deliberate.
On the earlier point, firstly how can the blog be separate when it has the contact details of the wessex scene editorial team plastered ll over it and even say 'the wessex blog is closely affiliated with the wessex scene'? all seems a bit dubious to me!
And the paper is slanted at the moment. It has been a depressing read for most of the year due to its digs at the union and university, and the arguments are never balanced. it's a real shame because whoever designed new look of the paper did a really good job, but unfortunately the journalism has been unprofessional and hasn't supported it.
I totally agree with the argument about the womens day poster and agree with its failings (SUSU let us down), but i felt really sorry for the student union when their response was posted, and only first half was put on the blog! that was outrageous behaviour. Some of the AGM concerns raised were terrible too. Claiming that by O'Reilly 'playing by the rules was just not good enough for some students'. What do you want them to do? break the rules?
Pete - 14 years ago
I don't think a case can really be made out that the Wessex Scene or the Wessx Blog (which are two seperate entities) are especially slanted against Sabbs. Yes we have published some critical articles, most notably about the Women's Day poster and the AGM. But those are two of our 'most read' articles on the blog, and the letters of complaint that the articles were built on were not written by students who aren't involved in the paper. Therefore its fair to say we were responding to and representing student concerns.
I'm not sure what all the good things they've done that we don't mention are. Could you clarify? The SUSU election got good coveragre, so did Varsity day and several other AU events. Remember we can only report things that are newsworthy, and a successful event is less likely to generate news than an unsuccessful one. I'm willing to accept we may have missed some events here and there, but as I said, you need to be specific.
I'd agree that the poll above isn't well written, but it was done by a journalist not a social sciences student. And I'm not sure that conducting a survey (albeit a poorly worded one) represents 'cheap tabloid journalism'.
As the politics editor, I'm also pretty stung by you calling us right wing. While every writer and editor comes in with their own specific political stance, in the main the paper has swung to the left this year. In some cases (hopefully, including mine) the far left. In fact we're regularly criticised for being too left wing. I'd agree with the above poster that you are either using the phrase in the wrong context, or you haven't been reading many of our articles. Which does raise the question of how well founded your criticism is.
I'm not speaking on behalf of the editorial team here, I'm just giving my personal own take on your comments.
Stumbled - 14 years ago
Fair point by Katrina. Where is the balanced journalism? Why don't you respond rather than insulting her comments?
Jim - 14 years ago
In what sense is the wessex scene right wing? Are you sure you even know what that means?
Katrina Sale - 14 years ago
This pole is bias, the language used here makes all the options negative. If your going to do this sort of cheap tabloid jounalism, I'd suggest at least rephrasing your one positive choice, 'there is nothing wrong with susu in the first place' so it actually seems positive. As far as the comment about the new sabbaticals, the Wessex Scene should give the current sabb team a break, without them your right wing paper would get shut down. Sure there are going to be problems in a big organisation, and there have been many, but the sabb team have done a fine job this year and you never put anything good that's been done in the paper. Of course anyone who reads your articles is going to think the union is rubbish. I'm glad the new vp comms is one of your gang, hopefully next year the paper will be less slanted.
Have you ever thought that perhaps something might be internally wrong with SUSU rather than blaming sabbaticals?
Dave I can assure you that the whole letter was published on the blog. There was an article that only used a section of the letter as reference but as Pete said, bar the 'Kind regards, etc' the letter was posted in full.
I'm pretty sure I speak for the whole Scene team when I say that they would post any response in full.
Just checked back to the letter we published as a response to the Women's Day complaints ( http://wessexblog.com/2010/04/16/union-responds-to-womens-day-complaints/ ), and the only thing missing from it are the words "kind regards, sophie paterson". I'm sure you'll agree that omitting that doesn't add up to 'outrageous behaviour' or show bias against the union. I'd be interested to know where you heard we only published half of the letter.
The blog and the wessex scene are seperate. The editorial team this year created the blog basically as a side project to the work we've done in the paper. It's not affiliated to SUSU and the wessex scene is, so for legal reasons its important that we distinguish clearly between the two.
With elections that got the whole of page 3 and a section on the front. I'm pretty sure the blog covered it to. The only reason why it didn't go on the front was because it happened to be at the same time as the cuts to halls wardens and sports studies were hitting the uni, and we felt that was more pressing news. You could argue that point either way and I think we'd have have been criticised by someone whichever story we led with.
The response to the Women's Day poster was published in full, at least everything I recieved (albeit third hand) went up on the blog unedited. I can't really answer for the AGM article given that I didn't write it, but I wouldn't say its poor to the extent of justifying such all round criticism of the entire paper.
I'm not a socialist, but I am left wing as I said above. I wouldn't be surprised if you picked that up from my articles, politics editor leaves room for a certain amount of comment as well as reporting of events. I don't restrict the views of other writers in my section, so I don't see any reason to restrict mine.
The journalism this year may not have been professional (perhaps not too surprising, since we're not professionals), but we've achieved a lot this year that I don't think should be dismissed... Katrina implies above that we focus on the negative points to the exclusion of the obvious positives. Perhaps you are guilty of the same?
couple of points Pete: SUSU elections got one small page of coverage which was massively disappointing considering it is the main event that affects students that are members of their union of the whole year.
I don't agree with Kitty that the paper is right wing, however it is clear from a lot of your articles that you are a socialist (I am assuming i am correct here) and although there is nothing wrong with that in practice, it is not preferable to have it noticable in the paper, be it accidental or deliberate.
On the earlier point, firstly how can the blog be separate when it has the contact details of the wessex scene editorial team plastered ll over it and even say 'the wessex blog is closely affiliated with the wessex scene'? all seems a bit dubious to me!
And the paper is slanted at the moment. It has been a depressing read for most of the year due to its digs at the union and university, and the arguments are never balanced. it's a real shame because whoever designed new look of the paper did a really good job, but unfortunately the journalism has been unprofessional and hasn't supported it.
I totally agree with the argument about the womens day poster and agree with its failings (SUSU let us down), but i felt really sorry for the student union when their response was posted, and only first half was put on the blog! that was outrageous behaviour. Some of the AGM concerns raised were terrible too. Claiming that by O'Reilly 'playing by the rules was just not good enough for some students'. What do you want them to do? break the rules?
I don't think a case can really be made out that the Wessex Scene or the Wessx Blog (which are two seperate entities) are especially slanted against Sabbs. Yes we have published some critical articles, most notably about the Women's Day poster and the AGM. But those are two of our 'most read' articles on the blog, and the letters of complaint that the articles were built on were not written by students who aren't involved in the paper. Therefore its fair to say we were responding to and representing student concerns.
I'm not sure what all the good things they've done that we don't mention are. Could you clarify? The SUSU election got good coveragre, so did Varsity day and several other AU events. Remember we can only report things that are newsworthy, and a successful event is less likely to generate news than an unsuccessful one. I'm willing to accept we may have missed some events here and there, but as I said, you need to be specific.
I'd agree that the poll above isn't well written, but it was done by a journalist not a social sciences student. And I'm not sure that conducting a survey (albeit a poorly worded one) represents 'cheap tabloid journalism'.
As the politics editor, I'm also pretty stung by you calling us right wing. While every writer and editor comes in with their own specific political stance, in the main the paper has swung to the left this year. In some cases (hopefully, including mine) the far left. In fact we're regularly criticised for being too left wing. I'd agree with the above poster that you are either using the phrase in the wrong context, or you haven't been reading many of our articles. Which does raise the question of how well founded your criticism is.
I'm not speaking on behalf of the editorial team here, I'm just giving my personal own take on your comments.
Fair point by Katrina. Where is the balanced journalism? Why don't you respond rather than insulting her comments?
In what sense is the wessex scene right wing? Are you sure you even know what that means?
This pole is bias, the language used here makes all the options negative. If your going to do this sort of cheap tabloid jounalism, I'd suggest at least rephrasing your one positive choice, 'there is nothing wrong with susu in the first place' so it actually seems positive. As far as the comment about the new sabbaticals, the Wessex Scene should give the current sabb team a break, without them your right wing paper would get shut down. Sure there are going to be problems in a big organisation, and there have been many, but the sabb team have done a fine job this year and you never put anything good that's been done in the paper. Of course anyone who reads your articles is going to think the union is rubbish. I'm glad the new vp comms is one of your gang, hopefully next year the paper will be less slanted.