The Gateway was better last year

For a newspaper that failed to actually get printed last Tuesday, the Gateway has some pushy policies.

As it turns out, when you sign a contract to be a writer for the Gateway, it means you’re very limited in what you get to say (let’s call this the fine print that’s not in the contract).

First, you can’t write letters in. You can’t even comment online. You can’t even write a response to someone else’s question about your story online. That’s some freedom.

And not just to related stories. If you’ve published an article in the past six months, you don’t get to write letters in about anything. Never mind that the Gateway often seems strapped to publish whatever they get (hint: I don’t think they want to publish “Letters from the archive”).

Next, if you’re a writer for them, and you get involved in a story (like, say, secular convocation), you can’t actually write anymore on that issue.

To be more specific, I can’t write on religion issues anymore! Imagine that.

Why such policies? “It would be a conflict of interest.”

No fucking shit, that’s what makes it worth reading. Let me write, let the president of Campus for Christ write, hell, let Jesus Christ Himself write a freaking article. It’s a small campus Gateway, and by telling people not to write, you’re shooting yourself in the foot.

Or should the media always try to remain impartial on issues? Like, when a number of newspapers (from local up to the National Post) wrote editorials on why we need to elect another Harper government.

People have slagged on the Gateway in every year I’ve been in university. It’s always “the Gateway was better last year.” Guess what people: it wasn’t. As a student newspaper, I have to believe it’s quality has been consistently shitty, and will continue to be consistently shitty. When they only get 2 opinion articles that pass the filters per issue, they’re going to get printed, quality or not (which is more often the case).

So to conclude, this is the first of a two-parter, where I slag on the Gateway (there may be more in the future, but it may also not be worth my time). In the next post, I will publish the letter I wrote in response to their shitty Entertainment Editor’s editorial on the convocation issue.