Western Gazette frosh issue ruffles feathers

Header image for Interrobang article CREDIT: STEPHANIE LAI
Third-year Graphic Design student Matt Van Lieshout reads the Gazette's 'So you want to date a teaching assistant?' online

The Gazette was under fire for publishing stories about drug use and dating teacher’s assistants, which were generating buzz – and not the good kind.

This isn’t the first time either.

“It seems every few years we hear about the paper taking heat over so-called satirical content in its frosh issue,” said CTV News reporter Brian Bicknell in a recent broadcast. “the Gazette says it’s trying to appeal to students in a light-hearted manner… some readers aren’t laughing.”

One piece titled, “So you want to date a teaching assistant?” is under considerable scrutiny as some believe it promotes stalking and sexual harassment.

Janice Deakin, provost and vicepresident academic at Western University voiced her opinion in a letter to the editor on the Gazette’s site.

“The Gazette has the right to run provocative articles, but I find it objectionable that your paper would publish a column promoting the idea that students should attempt to have inappropriate relationships with graduate teaching assistants,” she wrote. “It is disrespectful of the essential contribution graduate teaching assistants make to Western’s academic mission.”

“The time is long past when these kinds of articles can be defended as being either satire or humorous.”

Western teaching assistant Emily Ready told CTV News, “If we wrote something like that as TAs, how to get with your students, that would be totally inappropriate. That would never fly.”

Editor-in-chief, Iain Boekhoff insisted he and his team will be learning from their mistakes.

“We make mistakes, and I think we can learn from mistakes, especially in this situation with such a big backlash.”

“You have to remember we’re all students … We’re all first-time writers [and] first-time editors, who are not in the journalism program” said Boekhoff. “I think we did a very good job in presenting a wealth of information … We presented that information in a really good manner. I think the light-hearted pieces added to it.”

Boekhoff said that the sole purpose of The Gazette is its readers and if they are not pleased, the publication would modify and change its content.

Some were calling for Boekhoff’s resignation, but he said he’s not going anywhere.

“This situation is not one where anybody should resign because it doesn’t solve anything,” he said. “It doesn’t help the Gazette learn. It doesn’t help the university community learn. It doesn’t help us move on from our mistakes.”

“We can do a few things better. It’s one of experience and one of judgment,” Boekhoff said. “Now we know what things we can or cannot say and what things are acceptable to say. We’ll try and make sure our writing is better and that our editing process is better and that our judgment in publishing these things is better.”

Boekhoff said this speed bump would not stop the publication from attempting new things.

“It’s a giant experiment for all of us. We try and bend the rules, and we try and do different things as every newspaper does,” he said. “Once we get out into the real world of journalism, we won’t have the opportunity to do these things again. The time is now to have some fun with it.”

“The Gazette does not condone or promote sexual harassment, sexual violence, drug use or over-consumption of alcohol. We’ve always had a long tradition of reporting on topics that students care about and for our student audience, we will learn from this experience. We’ll learn from our mistakes and we will be better next time in our upcoming issues.”

President of the University Students’ Council, Matt Helfand, said the Gazette remains autonomous of the USC, however, he said this was not one of those times.

“It has become apparent that the editorial board grossly erred in publishing articles that appeared to be promoting excessive drinking, drug use and dating TAs,” he said in a letter to the editor. “We hope that an investigation will serve to reinforce the lessons learned and ensure that, in the future, these topics are dealt with sensitivity and with the utmost seriousness.”

In a statement released August 27, the Gazette apologized for the frosh edition and the London Free Press reported that the newspaper would be removing 3,000 copies from campus and selected stories from its website. The remaining 11,000 copies would not be distributed during orientation week.

“The controversy over the articles has now reached the level of national news. We take full responsibility for this, and we would like Western, the University Students’ Council, Western staff and students to know that we are sorry,” said the Gazette in a statement.