If no one attended, it’s not news

Oh the SFU Peak. So thin on content that they still publish stuff by Sam Reynolds (who a few weeks ago tried to argue that torture’s cool as long as it’s called “enhanced interrogation”), like today’s “Campus News” piece entitled “Pro-life demonstration draws few supporters.”

Of course titles are generally chosen by the section editors, so we don’t know what Sam’s first choice title would have been.

The article focuses on a recent event by SFU Students for Life (they’re anti-choicers, not perpetual students I think) that tried to use the shock value of the abortion-Holocaust comparison. The article spends about 2/3s of its length to explain what happened at the event, where only 17 actual human beings were (likely including Sam Reynolds, the speaker, and SFU SFL president).

Think about this: Almost no one attended the event (I had noticed the posters which were lacklustre white pieces of paper posted inconspicuously around campus), yet they now have the opportunity to use the News section (i.e. not the opinions) to spread their comparison.

Now, campus apathy makes a good story in regards to student politics and perhaps lacklustre student life, but picking a single event that tried to push an agenda almost everyone on campus hates and then making it our to be headline news? I call bias.

And notice that I choose to publish this here on my blog as opposed to sending anything in to the Peak, since there’s no reason to give this “debate” any more voice than it’s already received.