DIT paper to survive union censorship

A FREE-PRESS dispute between DIT students' union and student journalists at the institute was finally settled last week at the union's council meeting. The dispute arose when, at the behest of the union's executive council, the November issue of the DIT Examiner - the union's newspaper - was dumped and then reprinted without the original editorial.

In the article, Examiner editor Cearbhall O Siochain questioned the prospect of DIT attaining university status. According to DIT students' union overall president, Ross O'Daly, this editorial was removed because "it conflicted with the policy of the students' union, which supports the university campaign in all ways". O Siochain handed in his notice on December 18th.

Last week's council meeting passed two motions in relation to the newspaper. The first called for the union to continue publishing it in its current form; part of the second motion states that "council reasserts the fundamental principles of freedom of expression, of the media and of editorial independence, within the Dublin Institute of Technology Students' Union".

The motion continued: "Council regards the decision to censor the DIT Examiner as a blow to the reputation of the Dublin Institute of Technology Students' Union."

As a mark of solidarity with their colleague O Siochain, a rally had been organised by students from the DIT School of Journalism, who are members of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ); they also distributed a leaflet headed "Why are students censoring the students?"

Prior to the union's council meeting, Seamus Dooley, Irish organiser for the NUJ, spoke to the student journalists, saying that the censorship of the DIT Examiner by the students' union executive council "could only be described as a Stalinist approach".

Dooley added that, though O Siochain has challenged "a cosy consensus" about DIT's quest for university status, his editorial was "harmless". He described O Siochain's approach as: "Hold on a minute here, we don't need to open the champagne yet."

It was pointed out, in addition, that a report about the status campaign was carried on page 1 of the same issue and that O'Daly expressed the official view in his own column.

At the council meeting, O'Daly described the dispute as "a very explosive issue" which the union was "trying to resolve as amicably as possible". O'Daly agreed that other courses of actions should have been pursued. "I take sole responsibility for that," he said.

However, defending censorship of the editorial, O'Daly pointed out that the DIT Examiner is the students union's own paper and the policy of the students' union is to support university status.

As for the future of the newspaper, O'Daly told EDUCATION & LVING that it would be a few issues behind. Although the union will be interviewing soon for a general manager, O'Daly was "not 100 per cent sure" if it is looking for an editor. Each edition will be reviewed by an elected board of review, to be decided by council.

O'Daly's suggestion is for seven members, including the overall president or his appointee; students' union staff; chairpersons of student representative assemblies; and two council members.

Thomas Felle, "father" of the students' "chapel" of the NUJ, said the board's membership "is a matter for council. However, I would like to see a professional journalist and a member of the NUJ on that board."