Due to miscommunication, a protest is happening in Vari Hall today
(September 19, 2012).
Jane-Finch Action Against Poverty (JFAAP), an organization dedicated to empowering and protecting the Jane and Finch community, was angered by a line in an Excalibur editorial from March 28, 2012, by its outgoing Editor-in-Chief. The organization deemed the portion of the editorial discriminatory.
On behalf of the Jane and Finch community, JFAAP issued an open letter, outlining the ways in which Excalibur “misrepresents” the community, demanding an apology from the current editorial board.
A JFAAP-hosted protest against Excalibur will be happening today, because “despite [the organization’s] protest letters to Excalibur and to the administration of York University, no apologies
or even a simple explanation has been given.”
If JFAAP wanted a simple explanation, their representatives should have called me up. I have an extension in my office, and I’m more than willing to talk. I didn’t get a phone call. I didn’t get an email addressed to me. I was actually carbon-copied on this letter once it had gone out to the media. This might not have been the best approach to get a response from me.
Regardless, here is my response.
A key feature of Excalibur is that every year, the editorial board changes. Every position is held by one person from the beginning of May until the end of March. This means the opinions expressed by anyone on previous editorial boards are not necessarily held by any current editorial board members.
It’s unfortunate that JFAAP does not know Excalibur’s editorial structure, and that this individual no longer sits on the editorial board. With this in mind, I hope the organization can understand the strange position we, as new editorial board members, are in.
So, why assume the current editorial board holds this opinion about safety on campus? Or any opinion of the previous editorial board?
In fact, our investigations into safety on campus this year have headed in the opposite direction from the opinion expressed. On September 5, our front page story was on SASSL’s criticism of York administration’s safety bulletins on campus, calling them “false security.”
Our job all year is to look deeply into why crime rates on campus are high and give our readers answers. We do this through news investigations and reporting fact, not by reporting assumptions.
I’m also concerned that JFAAP incorrectly labelled the editorial in question as an “article.” It was not an “article,” but an editorial that expresses the opinions of one person, namely the previous Editor-in-Chief. Excalibur, one of the country’s best student newspapers and winner of several awards, would never present these claims in a news article.
The opinion of this individual, which stated crime problems on campus are coming from the Jane and Finch community, was factually held, cleaving to the fact that the Jane and Finch neighbourhood has one of the highest crime
rates in the country—a 2009 StatsCan report highlights several Toronto neighbourhoods as crime “hotspots,” one of which is the intersection of Jane and Finch.
This opinion may have been an oversimplification of a complex social issue which continues to be a problem throughout Toronto with no concrete solutions as of yet. As Torontonians, we’re all concerned with crime in our city, and are open to solutions to this problem.
To address the letter, which demanded an apology and an active attempt at creating good ties between the Jane and Finch community and York University, I must make it clear that Excalibur cannot, as an organization, issue an apology for the opinions of other writers, but we can, and most certainly will, work toward bridging any perceived gap between ourselves and the Jane and Finch community.
And Excalibur has an interest in that community: I, the current Editor-in-Chief, cut my teeth in news reporting at the York West Advocate, a Jane and Finch community newspaper.
We look forward to the responses of all concerned community members. We are very much interested in starting a dialogue in the community. For it is through dialogue—not allegations and assumptions based on miscommunication—that we can identify and implement solutions to problems on campus and elsewhere.
Leslie Armstrong
Editor-in-Chief
On behalf of the 2012-2013 editorial board
