The most recent article from The Ubyssey on the Free Speech Club (FSC) is an example of poor quality journalism, valuing clicks over honest reporting. I infer that part of this is because of the amount of attention that articles about the FSC generate. As of my writing this, a recent article on UBC’s baseball team (we have one of those?) has garnered zero reactions and zero shares, whereas the more recent article on the FSC’s attendance has garnered 82 reactions and 4 shares.
The headline contains two examples of valuing clicks over quality journalism. First, it states that the FSC “crashed” an event. This is inaccurate because we had been invited by somebody who held themselves out as a member of the Healthier Masculinities (HM) program. The person who extended the invitation to me in a private message referred to “our” role when telling me about the mandate of the HM program. It’s also worth noting that even if we had not been directly invited, it was a public event where one could argue that any UBC student was invited. As one of the FSC attendees stated to me, “I’m a man, I’m a university student with opinions on masculinity.” That statement could apply to many members of the FSC.
The second area in which the headline appears to value clicks over the truth is The Ubyssey’s decision to say that the discussion was hosted by the Sexual Assault Support Centre (SASC) instead of the HM program. While it is true that HM is a branch of the SASC, one should wonder why The Ubyssey would choose a headline highlighting the more general parent-group rather than the more specific program that was directly hosting it. Perhaps it is because The Ubyssey knew that the image of FSC members “crashing” a meeting filled with sex assault victims and demanding men’s “rights” would do a tremendous amount for the article’s traffic — far more than a headline saying they attended a discussion hosted by a discussion group on media portrayals of gender.
The biggest complaint within the article, coming from the HM facilitators, is that these three members “derailed” the discussion. However, it’s clear that the viewpoint from which the FSC members were approaching the discussion question — masculinity in the media — was very different from the viewpoint from which HM addresses the question. That stark difference in viewpoints no doubt requires some discourse to establish and fully understand what the differences are. The discourse must be civil, of course, but there is nothing in the article that suggests it was not — and further discussions I have had with the FSC attendees confirmed as much. They even stated that when discussion leaders requested that the discussion move along to a new topic, they acquiesced. I’m sure they weren’t perfect. I’m sure it may have been uncomfortable. But instead of using the term “derailed” to describe the members’ participation in the discussion, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they participated in the discussion and that the participation was somewhat challenging at times because of the stark difference in perspectives.
But it’s hard to see why people participating in a difficult discussion held by HM should be considered so terrible. Ever since the Advocacy for Men and Boy’s Club (AMB) was rejected by the AMS, HM has been given a monopoly on the institutional conversation around men’s issues. If they’re being granted that monopoly by our student government, do they not have an obligation to provide space for contrasting viewpoints on the issue? And if they don’t have an obligation to do so, then perhaps the mandates of HM and the AMB do not “overlap” as much as the AMS claims.
When all of this is put together, one can quickly see that the truth is not worthy of so much attention: three people attended and participated in a discussion on masculinity held by a group whose purpose is to discuss masculinity, and that group didn’t agree with their perspective. The Ubyssey could have reported as much, but then zero clicks would be had that day.
Jordan Schroeder is a third-year law student. He is also the President of the Free Speech Club.