Are you listening carefully? Then i’ll begin…

So Matt here has decided that he wont be doing a masters and hanging around at university like a bum, which means we are looking for a new features ed. Now I’m going to lay it out straight down the line, there is a lot to live up to, so only the brave and courageous need apply.

However for those of you who think this sounds like something they would like to do, drop us an email at redfeatures+editor@gmail.com, expressing your interest and any questions you might have and we will go from there.

Let the race begin…

(It isnt really a race.)

Did you hear that?

Guild election candidates answer questions.

At 1pm today there was another candidate hustings. This was a chance for students to hear candidate’s policies and to ask them any questions. The Sports candidates were asked about initiations, Welfare candidates asked about safety provisions for students such as the nightbus and the Community candidate was asked about student profiles within selly oak and the local community and what could be done to improve the student image.

It must be a nerve racking experience for the candidates with plenty of people looking to get their questions answered before they decide which candidates to vote for. For those of you that have not voted yet the hustings would have been a good opportunity to sound out the candidates on their polices. However their manifestos are available to view here.

Any candidates that you may have questions to would love to have them submitted via their websites, facebook or in person if you catch them on campus – it is important to find out what their plans are for the Guild so that you can make an informed choice.

The hustings have been being filmed by GTV so im sure a copy will be made available soon for people to watch, that way you can check on all the questions asked and the answers given – also all candidate interviews are here.

 

As ever drop us any questions you might have – redfeatures(at)gmail.com or a comment and feel free to use the links on the right to subscribe.

Have you cast yours?

Have you voted?

So being the ‘keeno’ i am, i voted this morning, voting has now been open approaching 12 hours and the candidates are out in full force – i was accosted several times on campus today. You must be lucky if you have been on campus and been able to avoid noticing anything about the elections.

But what is it all about, – well we are voting to elect the team of students who will run our Guild for the next year, this includes sabbatical and non-sabbatical officers. The seven sabbatical positions are President, VP Democracy and Resources, VP Education and Access,  VP Housing and Community, VP Welfare VP Student activities and development and VP Sport.

The people in these positions are responsible for helping to fulfill and implement policy decided on at Guild council, represent students to the University, fight and lobby on our behalf and make sure that the Guild is supporting all students. So it is imperative that all students take this opportunity to express their opinion about how we are run and how will be represented for the coming year.

The electronic voting system also includes an option to ‘spoil’ the ballot meaning that you can express your dissatisfaction with the choice of candidates and their policies if you feel that the candidates are not suitable. – This is a means to stay engaged with the system without feeling like you have to make a choice that you don’t believe in.

Drop any questions you might have into the comments and remember to use the links on the left to subscribe to the blog so you can stay up to date.

Visit, learn, subscribe and enjoy.

We have had this blog up and running for about a month now and this weekend it was given some attention – we now have RSS feed subscription links over there on the right that makes it easy to keep tabs on what we are up to. Plus links to other blogs and sites that we think you might find interesting and engaging.

This blog is also the perfect environment for discussion and debate – with visitors being able to comment on all articles to express their own opinions – much faster than writing a letter to the paper. If we can get you guys to engage a little with this blog then what we report on can become more about what everyone thinks rather than the opinions, analysis and comment of just the Redbrick writers.

We are also beginning to experiment with a podcast, which we are hoping to bring to you guys soon, sort of ‘Features does comment’. All i can do is implore you to visit again and to comment and participate. Even if you do not learn something new from one of our writers you may well learn something from each other. If you would like to get involved and write for the blog and/or paper, then please e-mail us at redfeatures(at)gmail.com

Also check here for our election coverage – where we are going to try and provide a day by day of the second week of campaigning – highlighting the importance of each position and the role they have to play within the Guild. This way we hope that people will be as aware as possible of the events taking place.

So, please, comment away, questions, criticisms and observations all welcome.

Redbrick Reader Survey

Hey all, this is just a quite note to say to everyone that it would be great if you could fill out this survey, it takes less than two mins and will really help us out.

http://www.tinyurl.com/aq2crv 

Thanks

Censorship: The ins and outs

Nick Petrie wonders where discretion stops and censorship starts

All views welcome?

WE are in trouble. If a newspaper cannot print the stories it deems relevant and the opinions it considers insightful then the truth is being withheld. The importance of free speech cannot be underestimated. The Government cannot stop a newspaper from printing a story; its only recourse is that of a DA notice (Defence Advisory) when it feels that withholding information will be beneficial for security operations. However, these advisory notices are just that: advice.

Editors must use their own judgement to decide whether to cover a story or not. All media suffers some form of censorship, even the decisions on what to cover mean that some stories receive less or no attention; this is censorship of one form or another. In the issue of Redbrick that came out on 23rd January we were asked to alter an article by the Guild. Redbrick was made to tone down the sentiment exressed in a contraversial piece and required to place a disclaimer regarding the opinion expressed within the article.

 I don’t believe that anyone is under the impression that Redbrick is a paper that spouts Guild rhetoric upon the student masses. Yet I am well aware that some people feel that in recent times Redbrick has lacked the grit and failed to challenge the Guild and the University as perhaps a student paper should. However, until this issue, this was not because the Guild was interfering with stories. I am very angry with ths, because the Guild is supposed to facilitate and protect students and our rights, including our right to free speech. By dictating what can or cannot be covered by the newspaper they impinge on our right to free speech and underminine the integrity of the paper as well as our ability to hold the University to account.

 I want to be clear; they have to have a legal overview of the paper to ensure that we are not in danger of defamation, slander or libel, in which case they would be responsible for the legal representation of Redbrick in such a situation. If content does not fall within this remit then it is the editorial team’s discretion as to what is published. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are considered a central part of our democracy; it is how we hold the government to account. We only have to look to the recent Times investigation into Lords taking cash for legislation to have this highlighted.

I ask myself this question: how far does our student union fail to protect us? Although I was not involved in the recent student protest over Israel’s occupation of Gaza, where a group of students occupied a lecture room in the Arts building, I understand that the University’s response to this peaceful protest was overblown and heavy-handed with a number of police being called in to marshal the situation. One student pointed out that situations like this are what University security is for, not the police.

While the Guild has pointed out that it did ensure punishment of those involved was not overly harsh, this was simply not communicated to the student population. It must also be noted that at unversities such as LSE and Warwick occupations lasted around a week, not just an afternoon. So was the University of Birmingham too heavy handed or did the Guild just not argue enough for our rights? It disturbs me to think that in the future not only might the Guild fail to protect its students, but that perhaps it might attempt to stop Redbrick from reporting on this.

I am well aware that many newspapers and news outlets omit information or play down reports due to pressure from their holding companies, and this is no different than the Guild stepping in to interfere. Sky, for instance, is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who also owns the News of the World, The Sun and The Times, so all the publications suffer editorial decisions imposed on them by Murdoch. Newspapers are bound by advertisers’ demands about the content and comments that their articles cover. Yet these instances should be separated, with full editorial control held by the editors, and owners left to run the business side of things. However, I feel compelled to ask: if the Guild feels it can dictate to us on this occasion, then what is to stop it from happening again?

The problems presented by plagiarism

IT was pointed out to us that in our first issue of term that a writer of ours had plagiarised some aspects of an article written online. Of course we take a similar line on plagiarism as the University itself: it simply is not acceptable. However i felt that this would be a good opportunity for us to explain the process of putting the paper together each week and maybe explain the time pressures a little, so that our readers can understand how things get missed and what we do to try and learn from our mistakes.

 

The way we run Features is as follows: 25-30 students compete for the content space we can allow in the paper for the week (this usually is around four or five pages – aproximately seven featured articles). Myself and Matt then decide on the interest of the articles and offer the page space with deadlines for the student who offered the idea. 

 

From there the writers are  free, to carry out their research and write the article. Once submitted the content is edited and published. What with having degrees and commitments to other societies – time to cross-reference every article with every media out there is, as I’m sure you’ll understand, not avaliable. It is unfortunate that such editorial positions are not sabbatical; this situation may then have been avoided. This means catching plagiarism is inherently difficult. In saying this, i do believe that the incident that was brought to our attention was a one off and a mistake that wont be repeated.

 

We do our best to be aware of all the major issues that are being covered in other media and other forms, to ensure that our content is original and enlightening. This is a process we are still learning, but in in which i feel we are making progress. 

 

I like to feel that Redbrick is a professional paper and we strive to ensure quality and interest. I think the fact that this does not happen regularly, at least not since I have been at the paper, is testament to the quality we try to ensure.

 

Please feel free to leave any comments you might have.

 

Start of something new

Welcome to the Redbrick Features blog, this is a bit of an experiment, we are going to use this blog to publish some of the articles from the paper, to publish some of the articles that don’t make it into the paper and to provide comment and feedback about editorial decisions that myself and Matt make.

Sometime we think that reasons for the inclusion or removal of some material isn’t clear, this also applies to photographs. We also think that we might be able to give you some insight into the pressures we face as Redbrick editors and why mistakes sometime occur.

So hopefully this will improve the dialogue between us and our readers. Please feel free to leave comments, we will do our best to take suggestions on board.

We are also hoping to make a weekly podcast available to you, for the the news snippets that don’t make it into features and to give you something to listen to if you can’t get hold of a copy of the paper or don’t have time to have a read one week.

We also have a twitter account – ‘redfeatures’ so find us and follow!