A while ago, an ex-employee of the University wrote to Honi Soit about an article. For the sake of familiarity, we’ll call them Bob. The article in question, Bob alleged, was not only unfactual and inappropriate, but impeding on their professional life, living on in Google searches. Driving Bob’s concern was the fact that employers and clients were seemingly mistaking this article for real journalism, stating that “they don’t realise that Honi is student media”…
Such seems to be the fate of student journalism at large: loathed by all, respected by none. Of course, such a request to alter past work in Honi was ultimately denied. Even if the original writers and editors of the piece consented to its alteration or deletion, to do so would put us in a serious ethical dilemma: how could history simply be rewritten?
This instance, unfortunately, seems to be in the minority of cases. While nearly every student media organisation and their publishers love to pronounce their fierce editorial independence, anyone on the inside will know this is far from the truth. Though naive in their approach, Bob was ultimately correct in their understanding that the record could simply be changed at their will. Between shifting editorial teams, the whims of the student councils, overzealous presidents, lack of funding, and the ever-present threat of litigation, publications like Honi Soit are far from free.
Without further ado, I’d like to lend dear Bob a helping hand by providing a short guide to censorship in student media.
1: Phone a Friend
In 2016, past Honi editor Max Hall penned an article critical of then SRC President Chloe Smith for her poor attendance of University committee meetings. Curiously, in the following year, after Hall’s term as an editor had expired — with a new editorial team and SRC President taking over the shop — the article goes missing.
While of course, there is no way of knowing how and why this article disappears from the website at this time, we do know that the only people capable of such an action are the SRC President and the Honi editorial team. From time to time, USyd Presidents have been known to lean ever so slightly on their student publications. This can encompass the obstruction of online articles, entire print editions, social media content, even gossip sections: at the end of the day, the President holds a near total control over the publication. Whether this control amalgamates through hostile, unnegotiated alteration — as in the case of 2019 President Jacky He — or the softer, more amicable ‘suggestions’ typical to Grassroots presidencies — often invoking shared left-wing views and terms such as ‘transformative justice’ — in both cases this authority is asserted through the President’s constitutional powers as publisher.
It’s not a great look, of course, for a President to pressure the media to delete a critical piece about them. Yet the following editorial team, with likely little attachment to the piece, and the ability to receive seemingly infinite difficulties from their own President, may be much more willing to comply.
Nowadays, Chloe Smith sits on the Inner West Council as a Labor councillor for the Stanmore-Damun Ward. Being one of the eight Labor councillors on the Council fiercely criticised for voting against the motion for a BDS review of investments, she clearly has bigger fish to fry than old Honi articles calling her a crappy SRC Prez. That being said, it’s good to know the article went back up on the website in 2018. Some hope remains.
2: Better yet, do it yourself!
When writing our own Office Bearer report cards, the Honi team spent a lot of time reflecting on the highly controversial 2021 report cards. This led us to notice a small issue with one report card: it seemed the names of the Vice Presidents had been entirely removed from the article. Thankfully, because of the handy edit history function of wordpress, we were able to see this change was made on October 18, 2022. Curiously, the alteration made to this highly critical article came at a time where one of the individuals whose name was removed from the report, Roisin Murphy, was an editor of Honi Soit.
One of the greatest strengths and weaknesses of student media is the fact that all editorial terms are finite. While it would be great to see where SCOOP might have taken the paper with a five year extension of their term, then we would also be denied the great strides SPICE, FIT, and BLOOM made in student journalism. However, while at a conventional publication, a consistent editorial team would be able to establish the checks and balances needed to ensure journalistic integrity, with a student publication such as Honi, journalistic, political, and ethical standards are free to be thrown out the door as soon as a new team walks in.
While generally there seems to be an atmosphere of camaraderie between Honi editors, the inevitable leaking of political careerists and resume stackers into editorial teams at times conflicts with this larger solidarity. When asked whether they were consulted about this change made to the report card, the 2021 editors stated they had received no such notice. The piece has since been returned to it’s original state.
3: The L Word
The Achilles heel of student journalism, of course, is material. While some publications engage in intense disputes for editorial independence, others are just barely able to hold on to their funding for printing. The universal language for gagging student media is any combination of the words “lawyer”, “sue”, “defamatory” or “litigation”. If this doesn’t shut your student journalists up, their legal advisors will likely do that for you. Every decent publication has had at least some experience with legal threats, whether that come from massive institutions, federal politicians, or even their very own SRC President. At the end of the day, we simply don’t have the funds to deal with serious threats of litigation.
While Honi is backed by a great legal advisor whose knowledge of defamation law is only bested by the length of his moustache, we too are still limited in our resources. While we would never shy away from topics that draw threats of litigation, at times we are nearly defenceless in this capacity.
In Conclusion…
To briefly return to Bob’s dilemma, it seems unlikely that such a request would have been made of a serious publication such as the Sydney Morning Herald or ABC. Only an unserious publication such as Honi would be asked to scrub it’s archives at anybody’s whim. Yet this only raises the question: in all these cases, if Honi is so unserious that it may be purged, altered, and censored without a care, then why do we make them so scared?
Ultimately, it is the fundamental unseriousness at the heart of student journalism that makes it so serious. Honi Soit, as with all student publications, has a significant place to play in the wider media landscape, and it will certainly not fulfil this role by aping the SMH or trying to do ‘serious journalism’: whatever that means. While the ABC sacks career journalists for speaking out against genocide, and the New York Times reaches new heights of passive tone, Honi Soit will continue to be unserious, to be considered “student media” as a pejorative, to be defaced and censored wantonly, because these exterior defects are nothing to the immanent corruption found elsewhere. We’re a little silly, a little fucked up, but at the end of the day, we still have teeth. Try not to get bit.
