Editorial: Who knew snowflakes could survive on the Sun?

Ubyssey staff
author
Published on April 21, 2017
Vancouver Sun

We regret to inform Douglas Todd that submissions for our spoof issue, Breitbarf, are now closed.

In a post on his Vancouver Sun staff blog earlier today, Todd penned a perfect addition to our spoof issue from the perspective of an old, ornery white man in a comfortable position of privilege who is upset at Breitbarf for making fun of white men (who have been having a real rough go of it lately), inadvertently proving the entire point of the spoof: conservative white guys can't take a joke.

It was pointed, it was meta, it was hilarious... it was serious?

We were disappointed, to say the least, that the Sun would publish something that simultaneously misunderstands and flaunts white privilege so brazenly, especially without comment from the paper it attacks — or, you know, any research at all.

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The article was also edited multiple times on the fly after it was published, with no record about what was added. Let's go through a few of the changes that were made as Todd received feedback on Twitter.

  • The headline was changed from asking whether the entire Ubyssey newspaper was bigoted, to just asking if the spoof issue was.
  • A 2015 Ubyssey masthead, featuring the names and email addresses of editors who no longer work at the paper, was included in a screenshot at the bottom, then replaced with the spoof issue's masthead.
  • There was originally no comment from a Ubyssey editor (although he imagined how we might respond).
  • In reference to who “appears to have” put together the issue, “blacks and others” was changed to “others.”
  • As questions mounted about why the story didn't include comment from The Ubyssey, Todd added that he was “just trying to reach them now.”

Todd and others were careful to note that the piece was just a blog post and that he doesn't have time to really dig into the issues right now, but he'll let the readers decide what they think — a favourite defense of lazy columnists who get their kicks in and walk away

But of course, that's not what Todd was trying to do. He ends the column by asking what the readers think, so we'll let them take it from here:

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