Vision needs to face facts: they don’t use any
An unattractive habit of mumbling is developing in Vision’s opinion pages. In the previous edition, columnist Harry Pearse commented on the recent Bad Taste elections in which the editor of Nouse stood for, and won, editorship of the magazine.
Except you wouldn’t know that was what he was talking about as the article strangely contained no references to either publication, guaranteeing that the majority of campus who were unaware of the election remained firmly in the dark. Pearse instead mumbled that “two out of three publications will now operate at the behest of one editor”, forgetting the many other publications as well as the Yorker. The issue of multiple-editorships is important and worth discussing but speaking behind your hands guarantees no one will listen to you.
But he isn’t the only offender. In an article reminiscent of Tony Blair’s rant against the Independent shortly before resigning, former Vanbrugh Chair Matt Oliver took it upon himself to face down irresponsible campus media. Writing in Vision he accused both papers of “having a fixation with student politics that makes Freud look balanced” and of unfairly labelling him a politician. Yet for all he had apparently suffered Oliver failed to name a single article demonstrating the “feral” (Blair’s word, but seemingly on the tip of Oliver’s tongue) journalism he so deplores.
This habit isn’t just the foible of individual columnists. In its editorial, Vision, responding to a Nouse story about an anti-Semitism row involving a staff member, thundered: “the harassment of university staff members by certain quarters of the campus media, and certain societies, is vomit inducing.” Strong, albeit bizarrely chosen, words. But the reader is left to guess which societies caused Vision’s editors digestive trouble. Are they talking about Jewish Society? And if so what harassment exactly? Why is Vision so afraid to make its views known?
Some readers will be convinced this is nothing more than typical campus papers bickering. To that I can offer nothing more mature than “they started it”. But I do think there is an important point to be made: campus deserves better than obscure allusions and shadow play. Having a platform for your views is a privilege, not a right. If you’re going to speak, then sit up and do it properly.
John McCain was famously unable to craft effective sound bites. But one phrase has stayed with me. Promising to publicly out wasteful Congressional spenders, he declared “I will make them famous and you will know their names”. You might not agree with what I’m saying but at least you know what, and who, I’m talking about.
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I think Nouse should worry about their own facts after this week’s edition, where the got Gemma Johnson’s college wrong and put Lewis Bretts in the wrong year!! Let alone all the typos and spelling mistakes.
This is an entirely unnecessary dig at an excellent and award-winning publication. I have nothing to do with either paper, but think it’s appalling to write an article with no other object but to criticise another York media society. Grow up.
Same for Matthew Pallas and for myself.
I am not a “postgrad from Wentworth” – I am a third year student from Alcuin. Also, I am not a ‘former’ ISA Welfare officer – I still hold that position and I will continue to hold it until June.
Not to mention the arbitrarily chosen ‘key policies’ (most of which were random side-points), the stream of typos or the biased extracts from the panel comments. I am sorry but I will not hesitate to say that Nouse did a very poor job in this edition.
I wonder whether Vision will actually do an article on ISA week, or is that a thing that only inferior articles do?
It’s International Week in fact, but I do agree with you – only the Yorker has covered it.
Even worse, Fiesta Afterparty was described as a ‘Vanbrugh JCRC event’ in Nouse’s previous edition..
Wow, so Nouse couldn’t defend itself in any way against what Matt Oliver had actually sad, except that he didn’t cite any actual articles. Maybe you should actually read your own paper occasionally and then you’ll realise he’s talking about every issue. This was a completely unnecessary article in which you all felt a little butt hurt about what Matt Oliver had said and were desperately clawing for something to respond with.
Not to gripe, but this issue said that Chris and I were “supporting issues such as the NUS “Broke and Broken” campaign as well as moves to raise tuition fees” – and I’m not quite sure how we could support both sides of the argument…
And looking on elections page 6, every single person pictured is in 3rd year but three are labeled postgrads…. Curious!
But yes, this article does make sense. I especially like how the Vision article seemed to panic at the thought that over half of the university media were being controlled by one person, despite the fact that URY, YSTV, The Yorker, Goodmag, DCUK, etc. are separate… and that Bad Taste doesn’t even really discuss anything similar to Vision or Nouse. I don’t even think that there’s a conflict of interest any more than being a signatory of any two societies! Very strange by both ‘papers
Today’s articles on elections highlighted some outstandingly lazy and self inolved journalism. The expert panel on YUSU contained a Nouse editor, a Nouse analyst and a failed candidate. Fantastic. The article on the candidates was lazy and inaccurate, and could have been cleared up with someone just bothering to check simple facts. Put your house in order before criticising, else you’ll look even stupider.
*self involved. How ironic.
You caught us.
You know, I won’t respond to this article’s content.
I have absolutely no need to.
Do you have any idea how stuff like this makes you look?
It speaks for itself. So beautifully, concisely.
It’d be tempting to print, in our publication, a long list of technical/grammatical errors and personal problems we have with your articles. But we don’t. Do you know why?
Because no one would read it. No one would care.
Don’t get me wrong, we’ll happily mock you in our satire page.
“Zhee peepols at Nouse arh, how you sai, so fun th’poke at?”
But students are dynamic, inspiring creatures.
I love them.
I’ll continue to do so.
They have such dreams.
Oh Nouse, if you could see their dreams.
If only.
Maybe you’d change your ways.
You might realize a thing or two.
Perhaps, one day.
On a boat, with some cotton.
A peaceful breeze.
Angels afloat.
Blue wind touching both ears; only feeling memory.
But of course, the question is:
Does that make me a racist?
Never change.
The Vision opinion article that you so despised was referred to ’2 out of the 3 publications’, with the 3 being Vision, Nouse and Bad Taste. Jason: May I point out that the likes of URY and YSTV are not “publications”, yes they are media outlets but they certainly aren’t what I’d call publications!! Therefore the Vision article was correct, and Nouse are simply splitting hairs and should instead focus on their own woeful current edition
Mike
Don’t all bite by commenting on the piece and thus giving Raf the expsure that he wants.
Didn’t the original Vision article say Henry had taken over 2 of the 3 campus news publications? I hadn’t noticed that Bad Taste had picked up a news section…
At least Vision can get away with it since they don’t take themselves as seriously as Nouse. I have to say the subediting of Nouse in recent months has been pretty appalling – how do things still go to print with countless spelling and grammatical mistakes in this day and age? Oh, you want FACTS of course…
Throughout the paper: inconsistent use of single and double quotation marks for quotes
P1. right column: inconsistent use of single and double quotation marks for proper nouns in the bit about Twitter and Twitterfall
…
bla bla bla…
…
Election pullout, P. 8, Jargon buster: “ornunused” and “accoridng” on the same line.
Election pullout, P. 8, A brief history of YUSU: Not only have you used the vastly misquoted, outdated and inaccurate “Kipper” history of York but you’ve misspelled the link to it. You also promise to name it in the 3rd column but completely fail to do so. In quoting the name of The Clean Pancake Building, you open with double quotation marks and close with single (using a Mac are we?). In the same article, instead of no-confidenced, you write “no-conficed”.
Phew.
Hi Mike,
What about the Zahir? What about Vox? They have about as much to do with campus news and agenda setting as Bad Taste.
Best,
Raf
I wonder why Ralf, or any other Nouse representative, has not answered in this thread… Don’t they read the comments to their articles?
A.
Hi all,
Thank you for your comments.
Let me start by apologising for any factual errors in this week’s Nouse. Despite best efforts mistakes will always creep in (from student papers to nationals) but it’s still regrettable when it happens. Nouse has always been happy to hold up its hands and print a correction if necessary and I would advise anyone who would like to see one printed to contact the editor.
As I hope is clear though my article isn’t intended as a ‘long list of technical/grammatical errors’, in fact it isn’t really about errors at all. Both Nouse and Vision make factual mistakes. I’m not weighing in on that.
What I was hoping to highlight was what I see a growing trend in the Vision comment pages of being deliberately obscure in order to avoid tough editorial calls or because giving actual examples would show the writer’s argument to be faulty.
Think about the editorial on the anti-semitism row: anyone can use strong language like ‘vomit-inducing’ but what is the point if you don’t say who you’re talking about? A brave editorial decision would be to name the society concerned, list the paper’s objections to its behaviour, and then stand by them. Anyone can fling terms like that around but you need to be courageous and sure of your facts to level a specific accusation. On this issue, Vision didn’t seem to be either.
Freya, I think something similar applies to Oliver’s article. It’s all very well to accuse campus media of various shortcomings. That’s the easy bit. The more difficult is to hold up an example and allow the reader to judge whether your argument still stands up. Despite the high word count Oliver didn’t do this, and I’m inclined to think it’s because the reality of what campus media printed about him last year doesn’t match up to the picture he tried to paint in his piece.
Finally, with Pearse’s article it seems deliberately obscure and obtuse to not name the two publications now under a single editor, despite spending hundreds of words talking about them. My hunch is that if you were to do so most readers would come to conclusions similar to those above: yes, there may be issues about Bad Taste losing its distinctive identity but in general they are very different publications, likely to remain that way, and Bad Taste coming under Nouse editorship certainly isn’t the Murdoch-style death of competition that the article forebodingly warns of. But as I said it’s easy to fling words about – the hard part is to give examples that will stand up to scrutiny.
All the best,
Raf
Indeed, URY and YSTV aren’t publications but you have to look at it one of two ways:
either we’re talking publications in which case VOX, Christis, Goodmag etc. must count
or we’re talking campus news media in which case URY and YSTV must count. My point is that the article has no basis in its 2/3 claim
What nonsense – how can you slag off Matt Oliver’s article and blame it on Vision when it is his opinion? If there is a lack of facts then it is not Vision’s fault, it is Oliver’s
The phrase “mistakes will always creep in” is odd, as the last article alone is absolutely riddled with horrendously poor errors. Leaving aside spelling and grammar (mistakes which warrant a post themselves), the facts seems to play second fiddle to just throwing opinions about.
It is fair to say that your article is not to criticise technical/grammatical errors, but it is short-sighted to try and attack another media outlet for not stating specifics often enough. Nouse certainly does go for specifics, it just tragically (and embarrassingly) gets them wrong.
A final point, surely Bad Taste coming under Nouse editorship is a complete lack of competition. You even say yourself that Bad Taste may lose its distinctive identity. How is that not a lack of competition, in any way?
A cheap hack taking a cheap shot? Definitely. Name dropping doesn’t make you a top class journalist.
I’m inclined to think that personal insults written anonymously are a better example of a ‘cheap shot’ than my article, but that may just be me.
I’m not responsible for the rest of the paper, I’m confident in the accuracy of the facts that I cite and I don’t think my opinion is invalid because of mistakes made by others. If you think my argument is wrong because my facts or quotes are incorrect, then show them to me.
I’m also not entirely sure what you mean by ‘name dropping’, but perhaps neither are you.
Bad Taste being run by a Nouse editor isn’t the end of competition because Nouse and Bad Taste don’t compete. One is a newspaper, the other is a lifestyle magazine. They go for different stories and different approaches. The diversity of sources of news and opinion is unaffected – a conclusion most people would come to if Pearse had named the publications he was basing his article on.
I am sorry but I cannot allow the comment “mistakes creep in” to go untouched. I am sports editor for the Yorker and my section, and the others, put out articles on a daily, not biweekly, basis. It is unbelievably rare that any mistake goes out on the site, and the fact Nouse let it happen in such a numerous fashion gives the impression they don’t care about good journalism.
I know this is far from the case, but Nouse should look to be more careful with their own production before they criticise others. This does not mean the points Sanchez’s article raise are not true it just means they are ill-advised and slightly hypocritical.
Sir,
In your response, you say you are not responsible for the entire of Nouse, thus it is odd that typographical errors would be put forward as a concern to you. However, it seems slightly hypocritical to be claiming that any errors you have are down to you, and the rest of the paper’s errors are its own, while questioning Vision for having the same foibles. You state that Vision, as a whole, does not use any facts, whilst only mentioning Pearse, Oliver and one editorial. Surely the gross inaccuracies in the section looking at YUSU election candidates in the recent Nouse would mean that Nouse does not use facts either, if we are to follow the same rule. To criticise one column or writer is fine, but it strikes me as unfair to generalise an entire publication because of three pieces.
You very responsibly state that any mistakes found should be brought to you individually, so why are you not doing the same for those poor folks at Vision?
Hi Gareth,
Thank you for your comment. It’s significantly more constructive than some of those posted previously.
My point is that I’m not criticising these articles because they have mistakes in them. As far as I can tell the facts they do cite are accurate. Newspapers in general print errors – it’s the reality of publishing tens of thousands of words on a deadline – but it isn’t worth writing a column about.
What I’m trying to highlight is not mistakes but rather a growing trend in which comment writers throw around strongly worded opinions without providing relevant examples. In the case of the editorial Vision appears not to have had sufficient confidence in the serious accusation it was making to actually level it anyone – which begs the question: why do it in the first place? In the case of the Pearse and Oliver articles both make strong claims (campus media is becoming monopolised, and campus media is unprofessional) but in neither case are they prepared to hold up an example that would allow the reader to judge the veracity of their claims for themselves. In both cases I think they deliberately leave out examples because it would undermine their arguments.
I don’t claim anywhere that Vision as a whole doesn’t use facts. They do, and the vast majority are accurate. What I am arguing is that in the comment section there is a habit of deliberately leaving out inconvenient facts and examples – something very different to the errors printed in this edition of Nouse.
Best,
Raf
At least everything in vision (errors and all) makes sense, there’s no ‘social pariah’ or ‘destructors’ in vision! And their satire page is brilliant.
Still, good to see a bit of banter between our two papers. I hope vision have a typo-riddled response to this in their next issue!
I’m glad this article has been treated with the contempt it deserved. It really was a shameless cheap shot. Personally, I regard the rivalry between Nouse and Vision as helpful and friendly, the two are very different newspapers and the presence of another news publication on campus is always an incentive to improve. However this just seems to be a needless and arrogant snipe at Vision.
Both the articles that Raf criticises are oppinion pieces, so is it really worthwhile to turn criticisms of the articles into a comment article? To me that is clear indication of a desperation to fill space. Rather than highlighting what you see as indiscressions in our writing by making an article out of it yourselves, surely it would be better to publish a quality edition that puts ours to shame? It goes without saying that this is something that Nouse categorically failed to do.
When we ridicule aspects of Nouse it is done in an obviously humorous manner, it usually involves us highlighting how seriously you take yourselves. Honestly I still have not found a student who does not think “Destructors” is a pretentious pile of wank. Surely most of the Nouse editorial team think the same?
Hi Mike,
Thanks for your comment.
I’m genuinely intrigued that you’re not trying to refute any of the criticisms I made in my article. Why didn’t Vision name the society whose behaviour it found so tough to stomach? The paper clearly took a strong view on it and made a very serious accusation that the society had been harassing a member of staff. Why was Vision afraid to call them out on it?
Best,
Raf
Raf,
The last time Vision ‘called’ anyone out, our issue was retracted.
Unfortunately, the aftermath of that incident has caused us to approach contentious pieces with an air of oversensitivity; we’re still testing waters in regard to naming specific students and groups, especially in opinion pieces. Within a news-context, all relevant information will still be provided.
This hasn’t been an imposed decision, rather a learned state of caution on behalf of the editorial team.
In regards to other omissions -… well, shit happens.
We’ll happily take criticism/suggestion on board from any of our readers, of course.
Raf,
in your response to the fusillade of largely critical comments you article has received you said, ‘Bad Taste coming under Nouse editorship certainly isn’t the Murdoch-style death of competition’.
The fact that you think Bad Taste is now an auxilliary of the Nouse editorship is quite troubling, and precisely what my piece was concerned with.
Big love,
h.
I think the inferance is clear to be honest. There were only two societies who were mentioned in the news story, thus I think any intelligent reader would be quite clear about the accusations we are making.
Raf,
I think more to the point, is that the comment about the anti-semitism thing was about a news story. It related to what WAS published in the paper.
If you’d bothered to read that article you would have found that Vision are not accusing anyone of harassment ourselves. We are REPORTING accusations.
What you will find, when you get around to reading it, is that the News article reported that Andrew Collingwood had accused “an individual (unnamed) searching for a reason to label me an anti-Semite.” He goes on to say that the Nouse article on the matter “deeply offended and upset him.”
Now, I don’t think we can be any more clear than that. It’s HIS accusation. We reported it and commented on it. Of course we are not naming anyone because a) the relevant names have already been said in the news section, b) we are not making accusations ourselves.
I would also like to point out that if you disagree or dislike a comment piece, that is not a reflection on the newspaper but the writer as they their views. I personally thought Matt Oliver’s piece was very immature and I disagree with his opinions, but it is HIS opinion not Visions. As for the “3 publications,” I don’t really see what your problem is with this? I presume, like you say yourself of Nouse, “despite best efforts mistakes will always creep in.”
p.s. The Yorker is not in the same category as you know because it is not part of the Media Charter. It also has a capital ”T” in “The,” if you’re being fussy…
p.p.s. I’m surprised you took a swipe at us after we kindly decided it would be childish to print a story about you lot getting reprimanded for climbing through the windows of Grimston House? You see, we’re just that nice!
I think that the phrase “mistakes will always creep in” is rather funny.
Concerning grammatical and spelling errors, surely your writers use an editor with spell-check? This is a very minor point though.
I am more interested how mistakes concerning the candidates can “creep in”. I mean, why would anyone write that George and Matthew are post-grads? Surely it was a random guess, I cannot explain it otherwise. In addition, from what I’ve heard, candidates had submitted their actual key policies, yet such submissions were neglected, and policies were selected at random from the candidates’ speeches etc.
Is it not the job of the editor to go through the edition before it gets printed, and correct such mistakes? I like your response, that Nouse always corrects such errors once pointed out. When will you do this? In the next edition, after the elections have been concluded? Your mistakes may affect a person’s chance of winning. I really believe that at least for this edition, you should have been more responsible.
Best,
A.
If you spot any mistakes that didn’t get corrected on the candidates page on the website please let me know at tech@nouse.co.uk and they will get corrected.
Raf, I think you completely missed the point (in fact, more than one point)
1) I had as much of a go at Vision as Nouse, that you took it as some sort of Vision warning shot across the bows makes me think that you’ve developed a persecution complex.
2) I could have named names, of course i could, but then I didn’t see the worth in ‘calling out’ or whatever you want to call it my own friends, friends of friends and significant others of friends when all that would achieve would be to personally offend people. As my comment said, we’re all students, personally laying into each other is needless and a little nauseous, and the fact that you have reacted so strongly (on behalf of Nouse) to my criticisms is merely an indication that you don’t like the taste of your own medicine. You mean: something you’ve worked hard at is being criticised in public? AND some of the criticisms you think are unfounded? Heavens above, that must really suck for you.
3) I NEVER AT ANY STAGE complained it was all about me, learn to read. I was talking about student politics as a whole, not the way i personally was treated by the media, how could I? I was fortunate enough to get away without being slated I WAS TALKING ABOUT STUDENT POLITICS AS A WHOLE. You have gone out of your way to make this personal (and in this new spirit of referencing things, i reference my facebook wall) when my whole point was that it shouldn’t be. When it gets personal people get upset and start trying to defend themselves (reference the now four comments you’ve written on this article, and, yes, the fact that i’m doing it too) but the major difference is that you can defend yourself publically, whereas some of the targets of both papers assaults over the years haven’t been afforded the same luxury. Christ, you’ve probably seen me heavily inebriated somewhere, and I’ve seen you smashed in Ziggy’s as well as reading some other comments about other articles you’ve written around the internet. How personal do you want this to get? And where is the line drawn? I’m guessing it’s where you choose it is.
And yes, i know it’s not a perfect world, and people will be criticised, but you know what? Uni isn’t the real world either.
4) When i wrote a comment for Nouse i was asked to change it because it didn’t say what you’re editorial staff wanted it to, when i wrote a comment for Vision they didn’t ask me to change it despite the people on their staff who didn’t agree with it (re: Mike Williamson and i would imagine Mike Regan, but fair play to him for letting it stay in). I think that says it all.
Don’t mind me, I’m going to go and do my degree now, apologies to all for the length of this. Raf, if you want me to reference every point, i will but not in public, you know how to contact me, it is already apparent that you have me on facebook.
Matt
Raf,
I think this comes across as a little opportunistic. Moliver’s article was a comment on campus media in general, and a criticism of journalistic and editorial quality more specifically. There’s always going to be friction between elected representatives who want to spoon-feed the media their view (God knows I wish I could in my time), and journalists who want to spin the story their way.
I think this is the central issue, and the one you should have responded to. Instead, it looks a little like you’re taking the opportunity to criticise Vision. Nouse already has a reputation for better quality than Vision, and this doesn’t need to be reinforced in the kind of comment you’ve written.
Erik
Chris,
the website is run very well, I know this. And I know that comments get moderated very quickly, errors corrected as soon as possible etc.
The fact remains that I think more people read the printed edition, and these people will not realise that there were mistakes in it.
Best,
A.
Aris, although I believe that’s generally true (we get around 1600 unique users visiting the site during a typical week, compared to the print run of 4000) the elections page is a very atypical page – on Monday alone we had 2300 unique visitors just to the candidates page so I suspect a lot of people who vote have been checking our candidates page – it’s a lot more comprehensive (I don’t have “paper space” to worry about) as well as containing elections videos and 60 Second Manifestos…
I agree the mistakes were unfortunate (I wish I had been more involved on the production night – but like yourself and George I also have a dissertation due in. I do know George isn’t a postgrad!) and undermined what should have been an amazing edition (I’m hoping the fact that with the exception of this comment piece and the pullout, we’ve had no negative feedback on anything else in the paper means that generally everything else was fine, a few typos not withstanding!)
And to answer your earlier question – Quark (or at least the version we use) does not have a built-in spellchecker…
I wouldn’t say 2300 “unique” visitors. Unique IP addresses, maybe, etc.
Oh and in terms of mistakes, on the FRONT PAGE of Nouse it says (at the bottom) “the only penalisation has been to presidential candidate Bushby, and was only intended to level the playing field after a mass message was sent to his supporters” which is completely untrue. The mass message was sent to a completely different group of people. Had they been his supporters, there would have been no problem.
So, well, front page. And all that. You know
* I wouldn’t say 2300 “unique” visitors. Unique IP addresses, maybe, etc.
I would, and I’m the one who has access to the Google Analytics tool.
Whilst I don’t entirely disagree with Raf’s point regarding the fact that Vision’s comment pieces make outlandish (but perhaps not inaccurate) claims but do not substantiate them, I find *this* article frankly childish. Which seems to fit in with a trend of immaturity in the media rivalry.
Yes, Nouse is a very respectable, award-winning publication. But. So. Is. Vision.
Indeed, I would argue that in constructing itself as a tabloid publication, Vision had the right idea because they are GREAT at being a tabloid and that’s why they, too have won multiple awards.
Moreover, I think we need to remember that York is a rare exception: two papers are financed by the SU, but also numerous magazines, as well as YSTV and URY. It is time for York journalists to put aside their squabbles to CELEBRATE the fact that we have the best student media in the country.
Nouse itself has been forced to perpetually innovate with the arrival of The Yorker, as Nouse’s liveblogs and elections tab aptly shows. The fact that Nouse co-hosted the Hustings and that HJF hosted the presidential debate this year is also further proof that Nouse has found that The Yorker’s diversification (Collegiate and Tuition Fees debates, etc) to be worthy competition.
Banter between media outlets is fun and competition is healthy, but both Vision and Nouse have taken this too far in their satire pages. What’s more, if Nouse is going to stick to its self-proclaimed broadhseet status, it *will* need to set its own house in order by (a) getting some proper sub-editing and (b) making sure they get facts checked… having the appearance and the style (both in layout and rati of polysyllabic words per article) is not enough, your substance (which is generally v good) needs to follow.
Surely it can’t be the case. Less than 2300 have voted, as far as I’m aware, and I can’t imagine that a) people who aren’t voting would look at the page or b) everyone who is voting looked at the page. Not in one day, anyway!
How do you know that they’re unique? I looked on the page on two different uni computers and once on my home computer – I’d assume that counts thrice on your list? :-\
I’m not sure how Computing Services have their systems set up, but if it’s anyway similar to the Computer Science department that would only count as 2.
* people who aren’t voting would look at the page
Why wouldn’t they? They might click on it to have a look, then realise it’s not that interesting to them and click off.
You’re making a lot of assumptions lately, Jason.
I think that anyone who looks at Nouse normally would be voting in the elections anyway and those who went on Nouse because of the elections would have viewed the page too. Those who aren’t voting aren’t the kind of people who go on the Nouse website and have a look around and then leave for no real reason.
Maybe there were a few people who were from outside of York and looked at the site or maybe some alumni but I doubt that it was in the hundreds. Yes, I’m making assumptions!
Thank god Vision don’t have a website, we’d have to have these arguments after every anti-Nouse article they’ve ever run and that would take a long time. Seems to me that, never mind Nouse taking Nouse seriously, Vision take Nouse VERY seriously. As much effort into the rest of the paper as they do in The Sketch and they might even get nominated for Best Paper again.
Raf has made his point openly and supported it with names and facts, whether you agree with his conclusions or not. Vision should grow some balls and up the competition. It’s more fun when the opponent is worthy.
Well we’ll have that fun to look forward to next term when Vision’s (once award-winning) website returns…
Hi Matt (and all)
Thanks for your comment. I’m inclined to say this and then leave this article alone. Sooner or later someone is going to have to have to have the last word and, frankly, I don’t think I have the stamina for it to be me.
Part of me thinks you may be right – that by naming individuals I guaranteed that the message of this article was always going to be lost in the din that comes when things get ‘personal’. A quick glance at the comments here and it’s pretty clear this has brought out the worst in people (myself included).
But let’s also be absolutely clear about what I did and didn’t do in this article. I didn’t say you were a bad person. I didn’t use anything but the text of a piece you wrote underneath your name and your photo to criticise you. I didn’t bring up anything that any reader in Vanbrugh bar wouldn’t have access to. I haven’t misused the fact that I know you, or that we’ve had dealings in the past. So that in sense, I don’t think it’s fair to say this article is ‘personal’. If we can’t criticise each other for things things we commit to paper in the most public way then accountability (for both student media and politics) is over on campus. I criticised publicly and am now being criticised publicly, but I wouldn’t dream of suggesting that by quoting what I wrote against me people are being unfair.
Very quickly: I absolutely acknowledged that you were criticising Vision as well as Nouse – “Writing in Vision he accused both papers”, so I’m not sure the persecution complex charge sticks.
I also didn’t say your article was entirely about you. I quoted you as saying the papers “having a fixation with student politics that makes Freud look balanced”. Fixated on student politics, not Matt Oliver. But you did complain that you had been treated unfairly. I have the article in front of me, it says: “If I answer a loaded question carefully then I am acting like a politician, and if I am acting like a politician then I am a self-important, pretentious tosser who has got ideas above his station and completely forgotten that he is actually a student.”
So one last time: your article was unfair because you make serious and generalised accusations that the campus media acts in bad faith but you don’t point to any examples to allow the reader to make up their minds for themselves. You say naming individuals and specific articles is unnecessarily personal, but I actually think it’s much fairer to those you’re criticising to make clear what exactly you think they’ve done wrong, point to it, and let people make up their own minds.
I’m not angry that “something [I] worked hard at is being criticised in public”. Look at the comments under any article on this website. We’re used to very public criticism. I am angry that you make serious accusations without evidence to present to those you criticise or to the reader.
So show us the article where you were accused unfairly of being a politician. I’m not saying there isn’t one, it’s entirely possibly there is. But until you’re prepared to show some evidence I don’t think you should be making accusations.
Anyway I do regret the tone on this comment thread and, Matt, I am sorry if you were offended by what I wrote. But as I see it you wrote an article under your name and I criticised it publicly. You’re now doing the same to me and I think are well within your rights to.
All the best,
Raf
Hooray!
It’s funny that you’re accusing Vision of childishness when your own elections live blog contained this:
‘Two reporters from an alien news body just attempted to gain access to the election results hall and were turned away by door staff. Sad times for unofficial online blogs tonight…’
Pot calling the kettle black, surely? Maybe it’s the writers at Nouse who have truly cultivated ‘an unattractive habit of mumbling’. How childish of Nouse to take cheap shots at other campus publications, when they should really be covering the event at hand!