For starters, the pictures of the endorsed candidates look like they were cut out by children using safety scissors. Seriously, I haven’t seen edges that rough on Photoshop cutouts since I was mentoring grade-nine students in my high school’s journalism program. Then, the editors continue the middle school scrapbook feel of the whole thing by haphazardly sticking the cutouts around the border at whatever angle they could be crammed in. I mean, why is Tyler Hofmeister upside-down? Why is Joey Shea sideways? Could they have found a more smug-looking picture of Chris Bangs? It’s baffling, really.

Anyways, as egregious as these flaws are, they are far from the biggest issue with the front page. Dig Monday’s issue out of your recycling bin and try to find some sort of title or headline on the front page. Here, I’ll do it with you. Starting at the top we have “SSMU” looking like it was stamped in red ink across Hofmeister’s face. But that’s not really much of a title or headline on its own. Neither is the aforementioned “SACOMSS” that is floating around Chris Bangs’ head as if it just crawled out of his skull.

Oh, now I get it. The phrase “Say yes to…,” which is angled so that it flows into the bookstore ad beneath it, is actually supposed to apply to the candidates on the rest of the page. That seems to be a bit of an oversight, I’d say. It doesn’t help that the advertisement’s colour scheme is similar to the rest of the page, giving the sense that the rest of the front page is merely an extension of the ad.

Anyways, I guess we can move past the first page and take a look at the rest of the issue, the candidate endorsements in particular. For the most part the endorsements are fairly standard until we get to VP Clubs & Services. In this instance, The Daily has opted to endorse a “No” vote for Stefan Fong. While I understand that endorsing a vote against Fong is a viable option, I feel that the Daily has sold him short as a candidate. For instance, when discussing Fong’s experience at the Musician’s Collective, they say that “he claims he’s served as President.” He claims? Is the paper trying to imply that Fong is lying about his previous positions? I don’t mean to be overly defensive on Fong’s behalf, but this endorsement does come across as somewhat arbitrary in its criticism.

The problem, I think, is that the format of the candidate pages makes it easy for this sort of factual manipulation to occur, because the free-form blurbs written about each candidate allow the writer to include or omit whatever information best suits the conclusion they want make. In order to combat this problem in the future, I suggest The Daily use a more standardized template for each candidate, perhaps one that lists the candidates’ experience and their responses to specific questions. This will assure that the same information is included for each candidate, allowing the readers to make their own conclusions, rather than merely taking The Daily’s word for it.

Readers’ Advocate is a twice-monthly column written by Austin Lloyd addressing the performance, relevance, and quality of The Daily. You can reach him at readersadvocate@mcgilldaily.com.

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Well, sort of. I suppose “complaining” makes it sound more petty than I want to sound, but it suits my rhetoric. See, when social justice is involved, I’ve noticed a tendency at The Daily to trot out statistics showing inequity in society, and then blame it on distant power structures. Articles such as “This institution is still too white,” (Editorial, February 7, page 15) and “Too few women and minorities in leadership roles, report says” (News, February 16, page 3) do just this, leaving the reader with the sense that something should be done; but there is little discussion of what specifically we, the readers, can do about it.

Obviously, all of these articles have just causes for complaint. There are too few women in math and physics departments, as well as in the faculty and administration –  largely due to institutionalized sexism. But, at the end of the day, many articles published in The Daily will lead the readers to that same conclusion. For me, the issue is just that – we spend a lot of time drawing attention to the negative (which is not bad in and of itself), but often neglect the discussion of potential solutions.

In the recent news piece “Too few women and minorities in leadership roles, report says,” the author provides good information about discrimination in the workplace – but, let’s face it, the presence of institutionalized racism and sexism in the world of business isn’t exactly groundbreaking news in and of itself. So, instead, let’s talk about solutions. How can we work to change this state of affairs? Or if we can’t directly change the way that things are, let’s talk about the people who are trying to: the organizations working to bring more women into the physics department, minorities into university administration, et cetera.

Pieces that only focus on the problem, without mentioning the solution, tend to push the responsibility onto some sort of distant actor. When The Daily editorial board calls for the administration to take a “top-down anti-racist agenda that confronts hiring policies, career advancement, and curriculum reform,” it puts the sole blame for this situation on the administration, ignoring other actors who may be involved, and larger structural problems in society that might be the cause of an overly white faculty. A more solution-oriented approach to the issue might have taken a look at some of the societal issues at play and discussed ways in which we, the students and primary readers of The Daily, can affect the matter.

Spreading awareness is an admirable goal. But discussing the same issues week after week without touching on the potential solutions or, better yet, the solutions that are already being put in place, makes the messages less powerful. It looks as if we are merely complaining, rather than seeking to affect meaningful change in society.

Readers’ Advocate is a twice-monthly column written by Austin Lloyd addressing the performance, relevance, and quality of The Daily. You can reach him at readersadvocate@mcgilldaily.com.

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Usually what I do in this space, after searching The Daily for things to criticize, is complain about them for 500 words. The trouble is, I actually thought The Daily did a really good job with last Monday [January 28]’s sex issue. So now I’m stuck in the awkward position of having to either find some trumped-up flaw to kvetch about, or actually try to write something, dare I say it, positive (an area in which, frankly, I lack expertise).

Well, here goes.

For starters, I found the tone of this issue to be incredibly compelling. One of my recurring complaints about The Daily is the fact that articles are frequently written in a way that preaches at the readers, telling them what they should, or should not, do, say or think. As I mentioned in a previous piece “Engaging the Other Side” (Commentary, November 19, page 7), this style of writing generally fails to connect with readers, as it rarely explains why they should come around to the author’s way of thinking.

I’m relatively pleased to say that the sex issue managed to avoid this common pitfall. Take, for instance, Edna Chan’s piece “My Love is Not a Battlefield” (Sex issue, January 28, page 3). The author does not bombard the readers with jargon while commanding them to accept polyamoury; rather, they describe the process by which they came to terms with their own polyamoury. By discussing their own doubts about the idea and how they came to understand it, the author successfully compels the readers to do likewise.

In this same vein, the centrefold discussing sexual kinks did an excellent job of presenting the sometimes-taboo topic as a unique expression of one’s sexuality, divorcing the various practices from the idea that it represents abnormality or perversion. The combination of graphs, statistics, and quotes documenting personal experiences with sexuality demonstrates to readers who might have reservations about this subject just how ubiquitous, and, ultimately healthy, sexual kinks can be.

One way I had predicted this issue might fall short was ignoring the fact that some people are not yet fully comfortable with sexuality, or may be asexual. Admittedly, asexuality was not touched upon, but Megan Masterson’s “The 22-year-old Virgin” (Sex issue, January 28, page 8) addresses the idea that not everyone is, or needs to be, at the same place in terms of personal sexuality.

And there you have it, an issue of The Daily about which I have nothing to complain. Well, strictly speaking, that isn’t entirely true – the article “Out of Africa” (Commentary, January 28, page 8) essentially smugly informs its readers that they are racist because they are less informed about South Africa than the author, while doing nothing to better inform them. But the issue as a whole was easily one of the best this year. By letting authors address their readers with personal experiences rather than jargon, by bringing an often ignored topic into the mainstream in a user-friendly manner, and by showcasing the fact that not everyone needs to feel exactly the same way about this topic, The Daily was able to effectively communicate with its readers on the subject of sexuality. That said, let’s endeavour to make sure that this issue is not a fortuitous one-off. As we proceed through the rest of the semester, let’s try to apply the effective aspects of these pieces to the paper as a whole, rather than settling back into the old cycle of controversial mediocrity.

Readers’ Advocate is a twice-monthly column written by Austin Lloyd addressing the performance, relevance, and quality of The Daily. You can reach him at readersadvocate@mcgilldaily.com.

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You might think that we, the cynical young adults of the 21st century, have moved past this sort of thing by now. But you’d be wrong; at least as far as some writers at The Daily go.

Take Thursday’s News piece by Juan Camilo Velásquez on the decision to cut one hundred Arts courses for the 2013-2014 scholastic year (“100 Arts classes to be eliminated,” January 17, page 2). This story is, as you can imagine, a complicated one with long-lasting consequences for McGill, and potentially worrying implications regarding staff-student-administration relations, as well as McGill’s financial future. There are a number of angles from which this story could be approached, so I have to wonder what prompted the kicker “Arts senator alleges cuts are punishment for Course Lecturer unionization.”

Actually, I don’t have to wonder; it’s a kicker that, though a relatively small part of the story, supports one of The Daily’s favourite narratives: the classic conflict between Good (unions, students) and Evil (administration). Rather than presenting the story in a way that captures all sides of the issue, the paper tries to spin it toward this type of narrative by taking a particular opinion expressed in the article, and putting it out front. As a result, someone skimming the headlines will think that ‘admin punishes workers for unionizing’ is the main idea of the piece, which, frankly, isn’t the full story.

The emphasis on the union side of the story, projects to readers the sense that the writer was selective in which details he included in order to make the piece fit into a specific storyline.

Though I feel that Arts Senator James Gutman’s claims regarding the motives of the administration may have an element of truth, I also feel that the situation is likely more complicated than he – and whoever wrote the kicker for the piece – are trying to portray it. Putting the story into simplistic good versus evil terms tends to force someone into the role of a villain, obscuring the actions of other actors or outside forces which may be equally deserving of criticism.

And that’s the problem with this sort of spin; the confirmation bias that it generates can lead to authors and readers ignoring those details that don’t fit the story they want to tell. Ultimately, it’s not constructive to take the side in a conflict that superficially embodies that for which we stand, as doing so puts them beyond criticism. And if we want to make real progress, nothing should be beyond criticism.

Readers’ Advocate is a twice-monthly column written by Austin Lloyd addressing the performance, relevance, and quality of The Daily. You can reach Austin at readersadvocate@mcgilldaily.com.

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The Daily’s online comment section is no exception – it’s a land where discourse goes to die. But, within this junkyard of half-formed opinions and rage-fuelled rants, there is one finding of significance – the readers and writers are no longer communicating meaningfully.

You might think that is because the commenters are racist, sexist, homophobic rabble unworthy of your time, and you wouldn’t be totally wrong. Some people are lost causes. But, they’re the extreme cases. A lot of folks out there are well-meaning and reasonable, but were never really exposed to socially-progressive thought.

I grew up in Texas, where – as stereotypes have taught you, my dear Canadians – homophobia and racism are relatively common. Of course, most of those that hold these views aren’t monsters; they just grew up in the wrong situation and never learned better.

Well, at McGill we get a milder version of that. And, as I see it, publications like The Daily exist to be the progressive exposure some people have missed. That brings us to today’s problem: how can it fulfill that role when so many students have written it off as delusional and combative?

And, I get it. The Daily exists to call out oppression, and that will make some people uncomfortable – no matter how it is presented. But somewhere, the connection is severed. The message is not getting across. Sure, there is a core readership that is eternally receptive to all anti-oppressive ideas, but they’re mostly the same people who have already internalized the message –we’re preaching to a dead horse.

So how do you engage people not predisposed to agreeing with you? It’s one thing to tell someone that they’re being racist, but another to make them understand the perspective of the oppressed.

Take the controversial piece entitled “You are racist” (Guillermo Martínez de Velasco, October 18, Commentary, page 7), from a few weeks back. The piece made some good points, but, rather than trying to communicate, it attacked. Rather than making people aware of the casual racisms of everyday life, it puts them on the defensive from the start. The reader rationalizes casual racism, rather than reconsidering it.

At the other end of the spectrum are pieces that make the reader see their privilege from the vantage point of the oppressed. Christiana Collison (sometimes) and Ryan Thom (so far) do a good job of this – not only are they unyielding on the issues, but they’re also charismatic writers. They show you what society is doing wrong, and then they make you understand why you should care. When Thom describes the way that “[they] knew that [their] body was less lovable by far than those of the beautiful white men I fantasized about,” the reader feels their pain and begins to understand their perspective. Conversely, when Martínez de Velasco declares that “asking someone to explain to you why you are racist” is racist, the reader has no emotional context for the statement – the reader is not presented with any reason why this instance of racism matters; it is instead presented as a blanket accusation grounded largely in the theoretical with few real world implications.

I don’t mean to belittle and dismiss the theoretical and philosophical aspects of racism, but when the author focuses exclusively on them – and especially when the author uses them as a basis to level accusations at the reader – many of the readers are unable to connect and don’t retain the most important ideas of the piece. If, instead, the author can discuss casual racism (or any form of oppression) in a pragmatic way, generating an emotional response from the reader, the piece becomes accessible and stands a stronger chance of imparting the ideas that it seeks to get across.

So I guess this question goes out to the extended community of Commentary writers: what do you want to accomplish? Do you want to write self-congratulatory and condescending jargon-laden rants that alienate the readership, or can we reach out and begin to spread the message, not to those that already know it, but to those that need to hear it?

The Readers’ Advocate is a twice-monthly column written by Austin Lloyd addressing the performance, relevance, and quality of The Daily. You can reach him at readersadvocate@mcgilldaily.com.

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