For most of the 1980s I was a fixture on the second floor of the University Centre or UC at the University of Guelph. Those who went to Guelph will know what this means. The second floor was the location of the offices for the university's and each college's student government, for both student newspapers, and for the campus radio station. I was on the board of the student government, the Central Student Association or CSA; spent a decade at the paper, The Ontarion , eventually becoming it's editor-in-chief; and for most of the 80s, had a weekly morning show on CFRU, the radio station. I started volunteering on the second floor in 1981 when I was 17, two years before I actually became a student at Guelph, and, despite my best attempts to stay there forever, I didn't leave the place until the early 1990s.
One of the things I Ioved about Guelph at the time was that its politics were decidedly anti-establishment. Guelph stood up for the underdog, for peace, for social justice and for tolerance. Some called us leftist and, for some, that might have been true. I don't think I was that dogmatic and I know that some of my contemporaries at the time -- people like Mike Wallace, now the Conservative MP from Burlington but back then, a leader of the student government for one of university's colleges -- would vote and work for both the Liberal and Progressive Conservative parties at election times.
Still, it seemed to me that, for the course of a decade, The Ontarion's writers and editors and most of the leaders of the student government had a decidedly anti-establishment bent particularly compared to our student politician/journalist contemporaries at Western, McGill or Toronto, I'm certain I was the author of anti-free trade columns, for example, and was no fan of then prime minister Brian Mulroney. And no one I knew then thought much of Ronald Reagan and the military activities of the U.S. in Central America. Guelph was radical enough, in fact, that we had not one, but two very active student communist clubs -- the Maoists had their office and the Marxist-Leninists had theirs. And I loved all that radicalism.
With that context, let me now say how saddened and ashamed I was this morning to see, thanks to a pointer at The Torch, a hateful and vicious smear at the online newsletter of the Central Student Association. I have never, in more than 25 years as a professional journalist ever written a letter to the editor complaining about somone's coverage or asking for someone to censor themselves but I did so today. I believe that speech must be free and should have as few limits as possible, even if that speech is occasionally hurtful. But this morning's piece, its placement, and its prominence was beyond the pale so here's what I wrote:
Hello --
As an otherwise proud University of Guelph alumni, a former Ontarion Editor-in-Chief, and a former Central Students Association board member, I ask you to consider removing the piece found here:
http://www.thecannon.ca/viewpoint_details.php?id=7723
This is a piece the editors of the Cannon.ca now have at the top of its main index page with the absolutely shameful headline "U of G to honour war criminal".
As a journalist, I encourage and defend robust discussions of Canada's foreign policy and recognize that participants on all sides will have opinions and views which others in the debate may find objectionable. I'm personally and professionally committed to fair and accurate presentations of this discussion.
But labelling any individual "a war criminal" is a tremendously serious charge. Not only that, I suspect your lawyers would advise you that you have just committed monstrous libel. I know the lawyers who work for our chain would provide that advice.
More seriously, though, your vicious attack on Canada's former chief of defence staff does little to advance any debate on an important public policy issue. And to allow such a smear to be published in a forum which claims to speak for "the undergraduate students at the University of Guelph" brings dishonour to the University, the CSA and the those undergrads.
