City University Of London Student Union Votes To Overturn Ban On Daily Mail, Sun And Express

A ban on tabloid newspapers at City University of London - home to one of the UK’s top journalism schools - has been overturned in a student vote.

The institution’s student union caused uproar among students and graduates in November when it voted to ban the sale of the Daily Mail, The Sun and The Daily Express in campus outlets.

The union accused the red top papers of “stirring up racial hatred”, “attacking the weakest and poorest members of society” and publishing stories that are “inherently sexist”.

But less than three months after it was put in place, students have overwhelmingly voted to lift the ban, claiming it undermines free speech and “the very purpose of education”.

The motion, put forward by three journalism students, read: “A university is a forum for open discussion and is undermined by the censorship of dissenting narratives and opinions.

“Banning dissenting voices from the discourse is an inherently undemocratic act.”

Of the 70 students who attended the meeting, all but three voted to lift the ban.

The vote follows a series of protests by City students, who covered the journalism department in copies of the banned tabloids and petitioned the university.

The union was also widely ridiculed by many, who pointed out that the newspapers were not on sale on campus in the first place.


http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/city-university-london-ban-daily-mail-sun-express_uk_58a46135e4b094a129f0d2aa?utm_hp_ref=uk



Thank goodness people are standing up to these Illiberal regressives's.
Not only is the ban ridiculous, but its censuring Freedom of Expression and trying to force people over what they can read or not read. What is even worse, is its then surrendering to if there are any poor articles written, by not then challenging them.

Those 3 redtops are hardly renowned for facts , truth and educating the public. 
Wasn't the Mail recently dropped by Wiki as a source of facts?
We all know about Murdoch's comics and lies. As for the Express, does anyone read anything other than it's ludicrous weather reports about thundersnow, stormageddon and Siberian blasts?

Angry Andy wrote:Those 3 redtops are hardly renowned for facts , truth and educating the public. 
Wasn't the Mail recently dropped by Wiki as a source of facts?
We all know about Murdoch's comics and lies. As for the Express, does anyone read anything other than it's ludicrous weather reports about thundersnow, stormageddon and Siberian blasts?

Yes and wiki links was ridiculed for doing so based off them being classified as unreliable on facts.
Hardly any form of endorsement is it? Many independent fact checking bodies challenge incorrect claims, of which many correct. Now I certainly think these 3 papers are gossip mags, which have a poor political agenda, but they have a right to publication and for people to read them. Though that is all besides the point. What is the point is these Illiberal's and regressive's trying stifle freedom of speech, going against Liberal and secular values.

If we applied your reasoning for claims to stirring up hatred, then the Torah, Quran and Bible would classified as hate speech. So why are they not calling for these books to be banned?

The simple reason is we have such a thing as freedom of speech and no matter how these 3 books have stirred up more hatred over thousands of years than any other publication. I dont see these same Illiberal's championing banning them, do you?

You challenge poor and bad views with reason, not censorship.

Those three newspapers don't deserve the word "news" in their description.

eddie wrote:Those three newspapers don't deserve the word "news" in their description.

Whether you class them as news or not, its falling down the slippery road of totalitarianism, by banning Eddie.
We live in a Democracy, which rightly has Free Speech and like I say you challenge or ridicule poor misleading, hateful or incorrect news.

Thorin wrote:

eddie wrote:Those three newspapers don't deserve the word "news" in their description.

Whether you class them as news or not, its falling down the slippery road of totalitarianism, by banning Eddie.
We live in a Democracy, which rightly has Free Speech and like I say you challenge or ridicule poor misleading, hateful or incorrect news.

Yes I begrudgingly make you right. I'm all for free speech no matter how stupid some of it is.

eddie wrote:

Thorin wrote:


Whether you class them as news or not, its falling down the slippery road of totalitarianism, by banning Eddie.
We live in a Democracy, which rightly has Free Speech and like I say you challenge or ridicule poor misleading, hateful or incorrect news.

Yes I begrudgingly make you right. I'm all for free speech no matter how stupid some of it is.

No worries Eddie, to me what is needed is more and more people openly challenging poor views with sound reason.

Have to go, have a great day.

I'm not sure whether the students who first imposed the ban were attending courses at "one of the UK's top journalism schools" (sic) but if so one might at least have hoped that they had progressed as far as learning that neither the Daily Mail nor the Daily Express are "red tops", either in typography or political affiliation.

They are both classified as "middle market tabloids", whereas the "red tops" of the daily newspaper world are the Daily Mirror, The Sun and the Daily Star.

The Daily Express is now a shadow of its former self, and Andy is perfectly correct in ridiculing its editorial obsession with weather related doom and disaster, much of which usually turns out to be so localised as to qualify at best for a couple of paragraphs in the Shetland Herald, or whatever is the newspaper up there in the stormy northern wilds, or that Edward Bulwer-Lytton's famed "dark and stormy night" never actually happens.

The Daily Mail's long standing editorial policy is to support (though strongly and often harshly to criticise when it deems fit) the Conservative and Unionist Party, which means that the Left will always feel obliged to wail piteously about it "...not being known for facts, truth and education the public..." - perhaps because it has a reputation for implacable opposition to the Left's own equally partisan and flawed interpretation of those attributes.

Perhaps the Left prefer the, er, honest and open editorial practices of the criminally phone-hacking real red top, the Daily Mirror.

The Mail is fully entitled to campaign against the negative effects of the mass and virtually uncontrolled immigration policy of the Blair/Brown administration or the proven fraud and corruption that affect large areas of Britain's massive £12 billion international aid commitments... or even the proven fraud within the UK benefits system. But childish bans by immature students (now overturned, apparently, by people of more sense) ain't going to stop it doing so, and rightly so in my opinion.

In any case, I wonder whether the family of the murdered black youth Stephen Lawrence are equally dismissive of the Daily Mail? It was that newspaper's long and hard-fought campaign on their behalf that undoubtedly gained for them the justice that they sought.

I don't recall seeing the same commitment and determination from the rabidly (and sometimes utterly loony) Left-leaning Daily Mirror - or indeed from the luvvies' bible the Guardian - the management of which apparently see no wrong in using, er, creative tax avoidance methods while criticising the use of similar procedures by others.

People should have choice, who wants a society where others decide what papers (and then literature) are available to read.

It all sounds a bit Fahrenheit 451 to me.

Good for the students to get ALL papers back on campus.

Green from me Fred, I like the mail. Others may like The Daily Worker.

nicko wrote:Green from me Fred,   I like the mail.     Others may like The Daily Worker.

Thanks, Nicko. I read the Mail, too. And The Guardian. And the Indy. And the Mirror (which doesn't takle very long!). Or, indeed, any newspaper that happens to take my fancy when I pass a newsagent's shop.

The Mail makes mistakes, and so does every other newspaper from the Biggleswade Chronicle to The Times. I made plenty when I was editing an evening newspaper...the sheer pressures and speed of news gathering make them inevitable.

Much of the opprobrium thrown at the Mail, however,l is not against the accuracy of its reporting; it is against the RW editorial policy that it follows; the substance of what is published under the Daily Mail title in the leader (opinion) column; the contents of the letters page and the personalised articles written by either staff or freelance columnists.

Most of the news content is based on reported speech, and interviewees are as entitled to express their own opinions, no matter how objectionable towards other people or organisations these may be, as anyone else.

What most gets up my nose though, is the usual chant of "Daily Mail lies" by people who then fatuously claim that they "wouldn't have the paper in their house" or who boast of never reading it! Yet they don't see the irony in having their opinions formulated by the various websites set up specifically to denigrate the paper and which have in the past been shown to be, shall we say, somewhat economical with their own truisms.

The Mail certainly provides some controversial lively debates on forums.

I have the Sun every day as well. The Mirror cuts up nicely into squares to hang on a nail in the WC.

https://youtu.be/nwK7VRkbGiU