Op Ed: Don’t limit your expression…or ours

By MARC GUIDO BOLEN

Last week, more than 900 copies of the Voice were taken overnight. After replacing them with new copies, additional stacks were taken this week. It is disheartening to see this happen, and we’re doing our best to ensure it will not happen again.

This situation is not just a disservice to our team, but to the students and staff at Langara and the residents of Vancouver who enjoy reading our stories. Taking all copies simply prevents others from having the chance to read them. The Voice is free and is intended to be readily available for everyone. We operate in good faith that people will take as many copies as they need but will not take, steal or throw away all available copies on campus.

It is wrong that our papers were stolen and thrown away. It is a greater wrong that whoever threw them away did not state their cause, reason or concern. Suppressing one voice does not amplify another, especially when that voice remains silent or anonymous.

The role the Voice plays in elevating the voices of our students and staff is worth preserving. Sometimes our stories are read by thousands, sometimes by only a few dozen. Regardless of how many eyes the stories reach, the Voice, and journalism at large, is often meaningful and should be preserved.

That being said, the Voice is just one group of students, who cycle in and out within one to two years of education, taught by four or five instructors, in a school where many students will finish their studies elsewhere. In other words, the Voice does not represent every perspective on campus and we should not be, and aren’t, the only voice on campus. We encourage everyone to share their voice without destroying ours.

Like most media outlets, our newspaper exists within certain boundaries with unique tradeoffs. While many media outlets rely on ad revenue or subscriptions, the Voice is dependent on Langara College. The Voice is both a platform for journalism but also a means of education for students.

Producing journalism within a classroom means our choices are shaped not only by our own perspectives but also by the oversight of instructors and the program at large. With that, it is often difficult to balance the goal of providing good journalism with our education. Balancing journalism, education, student values and instructor priorities can result in gaps in our reporting and in the scope of our coverage.

If you feel your stories are not being heard, especially if the newspaper fails to present a balanced view on certain topics and issues, please contact the editors and share your thoughts and concerns.

To continue fair access to our paper, we will continue to reprint and share in its entirety any edition that is stolen from the stands, regardless of the time or cost required. We ask that you limit the amount of free copies to five per reader. If you want more, please come to A226 and ask.

Lastly, and most importantly, I would like to express gratitude to those who read, share and participate in our paper each week. Our cohort of student reporters and editors does its best to ensure our stories fairly represent the faculty, students and South Vancouver residents that fill our pages and website with their stories. We are dependent on them to continue both our journalism and education.