On March 10, AMS Assembly deliberated a motion that read as follows: “That AMS Assembly directs the Media Services Director to conduct an analysis of the content of The Queen’s Journal during the current academic year and to subsequently report on the percentage of content that directly addresses student activities and events.”
The motion passed by 21 votes to seven, with four abstentions.
The Journal’s editorial staff believe that this motion poses a direct threat to the editorial autonomy of this publication, and interferes with its ability to function in line with its existing mandate.
The AMS Assembly is the highest legislative body of the corporation that publishes the Journal. The Journal’s responsibility to its publisher is limited to its financial operations alone. Thus, the AMS has no influence upon or control over the Journal’s content.
This arrangement is not informal.AMS by-law 13.01.03 states, “It is recognized and affirmed that it is in the best interests of the Society members, and of the University community, that the Queen’s Journal be free from the influence of student government and outside institutions with regards to its editorial integrity and accordingly, that it be independent of the Board both as to management and editorial control.”
Section 15.01.04 of the AMS constitution indicates that the responsibility of the Editor(s) in Chief to AMS Assembly as concerns editorial content is that the Journal “does not contain any material which is of a seditious, libellous or scandalous nature, or which constitutes an invasion of privacy or violation of copyright or proprietary right.”
Surveying the Journal’s content for relevance does not fall under any of those headings.
The autonomy granted to the Journal by the governance documents of the AMS is not a free license. This publication is granted editorial autonomy with the responsibility outlined in the AMS Constitution, section 15.01.01.iii.b, “to give an accurate account of news relevant to the University, and to discuss questions of current interest.” In other words, the Journal has a responsibility to provide the Queen’s community with relevant coverage, but to do so in a manner free from outside influence.
For AMS Assembly to ask any questions about the Journal’s content not only contravenes its own bylaw, it also represents a threat to the ability of this publication to function as a source of independent and objective coverage.
The Journal doesn’t oppose the goal of this motion—only the forum in which it is being pursued.
AMS Assembly isn’t the place to raise grievances about the Journal’s content. Instructing the Media Services Director—an employee of the AMS with a fiduciary relationship to the Journal—to audit its content gives that individual a task that falls entirely outside his or her purview. Our editorial content should be solely the concern of our readers—the Queen’s community as a whole.
The community of this university is composed of a diverse group of individuals with an equally diverse range of interests. In order to reach as much of the student body as possible, the Journal strives to cater to a variety of interests by offering news, athletic, creative and artistic content, in-depth coverage and human interest material.
Ideally, the Journal would possess sufficient resources and staff to provide comprehensive coverage—reporting on every event of any relevance to the Queen’s community.
This is not the case.
For this reason, the editorial staff must decide what material appears in the Journal—and consequently, what material is not covered or published. This decision is directly based on the editors’ perception of how accessible the story is to the Queen’s community as a whole—in other words, its relevance.
Therefore, it’s crucial to recognize the distinction between relevance and comprehensiveness. The Journal may never be entirely comprehensive, but it is always relevant.
It sets a bad precedent for a discussion of the Journal’s editorial content to occur anywhere within the structure of our publisher. The final say on “relevance” cannot rest anywhere but inside the Journal and with its readers, unless the Journal’s content is determined according to an artificial and external framework. The creation of such a framework would effectively neutralize the Journal’s mandate, “to give an accurate account of news and events relevant to the University, including elections, AMS Assembly, the Corporation and referenda, and to discuss questions of current interest.”
The Journal’s staff aren’t afraid of being held to that standard. We firmly believe that every piece of media in this newspaper is relevant to some or all portions of the Queen’s community, and that any reasonable assessment will support this belief.
Our belief in our relevance to the student body stems not from arrogance or single-mindedness, but from our recognition that we would no longer serve a purpose if our readers weren’t interested in the content that we publish.
Putting together a newspaper requires an investment of time and energy—an investment that is only worthwhile if the material we print actually matters.
That’s not to say that the Journal’s editors, writers and contributors don’t make mistakes. If you take issue with the content provided in this publication, exercise your right to have input on the material we provide. Ideally, each student on this campus would scrutinize every issue of the Journal—and hold our work to the most exacting standard possible.
No one is obliged to read the Journal. Members of this community are free to disregard it as they see fit—but anyone wishing to do so has a responsibility to allow us to respond to their grievances first.
Don’t reject our content because of a misspelt name or misplaced period.
Don’t demean our publication because you feel that our coverage is unbalanced.
Instead, treat your concerns as an opportunity to engage us in discussion and keep us accountable.
Read one of our articles. Read all of our articles. Check facts. Go online and explain why an article is great. Go online and explain why an article is terrible. Come to open editorial board—next Tuesday at the Grad Club. Write a letter to the editor. Write several letters to the editor.
When we screw up, don’t jump to conclusions—ask questions.
Start this discussion in the right place—start it with us, not against us.
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s)-in-Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca.
