Journalism, activism, alternative media: The Link and the McGill Daily, 2000-2010 Mike Mowbray A Thesis In The Department of Sociology & Anthropology Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts [Sociology) Concordia University Montreal, Quebec August 2010 © Mike Mowbray, 2010 Library and Archives Bibliotheque et 1*1 Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-71050-0 Our file Notre r6f6rence ISBN: 978-0-494-71050-0 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distribute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non­ support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la these ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privee, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont ete enleves de thesis. cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. ••I Canada [signature page to be inserted] iii Abstract Journalism, activism, alternative media: The Link and the McGill Daily, 2000-2010 Mike Mowbray Student newspapers, as an object unto themselves, have in the past been subject to very little scholarly examination, particularly in Canada. However, such publications are a unique site where students can engage in the production of publications with significant reach, assisted by the particular institutional arrangements that characterize these papers. Student journalists in such a position may seek to articulate journalistic identities, practices, ideals and standards that are distinct from 'mainstream' journalism (and which take up a progressive political mission or 'activist' orientation). This thesis examines two Montreal English-language student newspapers which have historically sought to fulfill a mission as politically-engaged publications, Concordia University's the Link and the McGill Daily, for the period of reference 2000-2010 - with particular respect to the ways in which the content of the two newspapers and reflections of student editors describe how they negotiate their particular social positioning (including tensions between 'professional' and 'activist' orientations to their work as journalists). In pursuing this examination, self-representations (in print) of the respective papers' histories, their involvement with and interventions in Canadian University Press, incidents of media critique directed at mainstream media, the ethical and normative journalistic standards described in guiding documents and by writers and interviewees, cases of change or acute tension with regard to 'professional' and 'activist' orientations, and coverage of anti-globalization and anti-police brutality protest events are discussed, tracing a selective history of the publications examined. IV For Andree-Anne, and for all those who are pretty sure they're fighting the good fight wherever it matters. v Acknowledgments I acknowledge the assistance of the Canadian state in the form of a Canada Graduate Scholarship (SSHRC), which largely permitted me to refrain from selling my labour on the market (for a time) and to devote myself to this project. In a more direct connection, I wish to acknowledge the support of my supervisor, Dr. Jean-Philippe Warren, and my appreciation for the participation and engagement of my committee members Dr. Greg Nielsen and Dr. Mike Gasher. All oversights and overindulgences here are, of course, strictly my own responsibility. I also wish to thank my family, for their support, which I will not even attempt to define or enumerate in its tremendous scope and degree. As well, acknowledgment is due to members of the Faculty at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology (past and present) who encouraged me, offered opportunities to indulge my academic leanings, and helped to shape my thinking or indicate new and interesting directions; this list includes, without being limited to (in addition to the members of my committee, especially the always available and incisive Dr. Warren): Maximilian Forte, Shelley Reuter, Bart Simon, Danielle Gauvreau, David Howes, Prashan Ranasinghe, Beverly Best, Katja Neves-Graca, Paul Sahni and Avi Goldberg. Thanks also to all of my colleagues in the Department, especially Valerie Bourdeau and Louise Birdsell-Bauer. And, of course, thanks to all of the (current and former) Linkies and Dailyites who indulged me to give an insider's view on two student newspapers which I've long appreciated from the outside looking in. vi Table of Contents Title page [i] Signature page [ii] Abstract iii Dedication iv Acknowledgments v Table of contents vi Introduction: The Link and The McGill Daily read against the mainstream 1 Chapter 1: Student press in the academic literature 19 Chapter 2: Theoretical orientations (1) & methodology (2) 40 Chapter 3: Locating the Link and McGill Daily: present, past, lieux de memoire 95 Chapter 4: Distinguishing student journalism: media criticism 133 Chapter 5: Journalism, professionalism and activism 169 Chapter 6: Protest events: anti-globalization and anti-police brutality 225 Conclusions: Hybrid/alternative media in the margins of the journalistic field 282 Works Cited 304 Appendix 1 313 Appendix II 315 Appendix III 317 Appendix IV 324 Introduction The Link and the McGill Daily read against the mainstream: Journalism, activism, 'alternative media'? Student media, and student newspapers in particular, have been curiously understudied given the substantial number of people involved in their production (including a great many prominent alumni) and as readers of university-based publications which may print upwards of 10,000 issues per week, their frequently high-quality content (with many papers often furnishing journalists to the professional realm), and the past and present inclination of a number of papers to seek to define a unique identity and range of coverage oriented towards a progressive or 'activist' social and political agenda. This is a particularly notable omission in the burgeoning literature on 'alternative media,' a classification for which many student newspapers, at least since the 1960s, would seem to vie, but an area of research in which they have generally been elided or treated only in passing. At a time when academic interest in alternative media (and 'alternative journalism') remains ascendant due to the widely-acknowledged importance (Atton 2001; Downing et al 2001; Rodriguez 2001; Howley 2005; Atton and Hamilton 2008; Hamilton 2008; Atkinson 2010) of examining outlets, ideas and practices which seek to offer supplement or corrective to the problems of the mainstream (corporate) media and when a key focus is on the ultimate contestability, hybridity and variability of normative orientations and practices which undermine hard conceptual divisions between 'mainstream' and 'alternative' (Atton and Hamilton 2008; Hamilton 2008; Elgul-Bibawi 2009), it is especially pertinent to examine student journalism, hovering as it does between identification and commitment to both a wider social field of journalism (itself dominated, to a significant extent by professional practice which largely takes place in mainstream news organizations) and to marking out an 'alternative' position that seeks to correct for perceived problems in the 1 wider field. The student press in Canada, as discussed in Chapter 1 (where I review what little pertinent literature is available), has at times been an incubator for dissent and a forceful challenger to mainstream journalism - yet barely a handful of works discuss its history or present instantiations.1 This thesis seeks to examine the extent to (and ways in) which both such challenges and student journalists' identifications with a more 'professional' sensibility more easily reconciled with the mainstream may be located in recent instantiations of the Link and the McGill Daily. At heart, the key question that began my research is a broad one: What is journalism? What is it to report (and comment on) the news? Here, I explore this question in the context of student journalism at two independent student newspapers, one at each of Montreal's two major English-language universities. In this context, more so, it appears, than in those of established