The media’s duty to its readers
If Vision, Nouse, URY and YSTV’s position in the former’s latest annual Power List left you cold, the perceived ‘power’ of the campus media was surely felt – albeit incorrectly – by outraged Economics students two weeks ago who, when presented with examination results over 20% lower on average than the previous year, blamed this newspaper and its Editor for “robbing them of their Firsts”.
This was, despite being an understandably intuitive response, untrue. The blame instead lay with the department’s examination criteria, and specifically the communication of that criteria to students.
Ironically, this newspaper began its investigations into the examination policy used by the department for the module in question after receiving worries from participating students and the YUSU Academic and Welfare Officer.
The department’s refutation of any across-the-board grade lowering and admittance of examination failures should convince those students and elected representatives that they have unfairly chosen to cast this newspaper in the role of villian in this particular pantomime.
This newspaper, and all YUM societies, exist to promote the interests of students, and act – in some cases – as powerful mediums to hold bodies, such as academic departments, to account. They should be used as such.
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