An invitation to the editor of Edinburgh’s student paper

You’re reading this because quite a long time ago now, I was a student at Edinburgh University. As well as doing a bit of academic work, I fell into journalism editing the university newspaper. It’s called the Student and it’s pretty old. Founded in 1887 – by people including Robert Louis Stevenson – it’s probably Britain’s oldest student newspaper.

I can write this today because of my time as a student journalist: without that experience, there’s no way someone of my background would have made it into the national media. The paper also helped people who went on to have vastly more distinguished careers than mine: Gordon Brown, Robin Cook, David Steel all wrote there. Fleet Street and broadcast journalism is littered with former Student writers.

I am writing about the Student today because its current editors have done what student journalists should always do: something stupid and awful that outrages previous generations. Predictably, this about sex, gender and trans issues – a much hotter topic in Scotland these days than elsewhere in the UK, largely because the SNP administration at Holyrood is pushing ahead with plans to allow people to self-identify their own legal gender.

In that context, a group of feminist campaigners have been attempting to hold a screening of a film they’ve made. It’s called Adult Human Female and it’s about the sex/gender debate from the perspective of women who worry that allowing any male-born person to claim the rights and status of a woman will be harmful to the welfare and standing of women.

That worry is, of course, controversial. Some people feel strongly that recognising a person’s gender identity over their biological sex is simply a humane act of tolerance; anyone who doesn’t hold that view is falling short on compassion and decency.

I won’t rehearse that debate further here – a quick check of various things I’ve written on this should tell you that I have a bit of knowledge and some opinions on these questions. I think the concerns raised in Adult Human Female should be recognised and discussed, calmly and reasonably, by anyone involved in public conversation.

Not everyone feels that way. Among them are some students at Edinburgh. When a group called Edinburgh Academics for Academic Freedom attempted to hold a screening of Adult Human Female at the university, those students protested and effectively caused the event to be called off.

The protesters say the film is ‘transphobic’.  The organisers say the protest stifles free speech.

You can read a report of the protest and the competing claims about it in various media outlets, including the Scotsman (where I began writing as an undergraduate, thanks to my experience at Student).

But you won’t read about it in the Student. According to Lucy Jackson, the current editor, reporting about the event would harm readers. Jackson has been tweeting about this decision, saying, among other things:‘The Student have taken the editorial decision not to cover the event as we do not believe in platforming the harmful rhetoric that will undoubtedly affect many of our student readership.’

Also: ‘The Student is a place where students can voice their opinion freely. Freedom of academic expression is important. Calling into question the human rights of trans people is not “free speech”, but is a targeted attack on the trans community.

‘Free speech does not mean the freedom to speak without accountability. Tonight’s event is dangerous and harmful to our community. It is our priority to report on this and hold those responsible to account.’

Here, tradition dictates that I should write in snorting fury at the awfulness of the current generation of student journalists, their piety and shallowness. I could round off my fury with a bit of theorising about the state of intellectual freedom in our universities, and maybe close with a line about Edinburgh being the cradle of the Enlightenment. 

That would be quite satisfying, but also entirely predictable and probably just a bit hypocritical. When I was a student hack, I could only dream of coming up with a stunt worthy of debate in the national media. Hats off to Lucy Jackson for winning the Student a place in this debate. Or lack of debate, if you prefer.

And of course, the people who run and edit a publication are free to decide what they write about it, and don’t write about. It is absolutely legitimate for the Student not to cover the Adult Human Female row. Just as freedom of speech has to mean allowing people to say things we don’t like or agree with, it also has to mean that everyone is free not to talk about something if they don’t want to.

To be clear, that’s not to agree with the decision not to cover people saying things you don’t like. I find that almost jaw-droppingly misguided and suggestive of a fundamental misunderstanding of what journalism is and what journalists do. We put information and arguments before our audience so that they can be better informed people, citizens, consumers and voters. We tell people things – whether we or they like those things or not. It’s up to them, not us, to decide what to think or do about those things.

Lucy Jackson and today’s Student hacks aren’t the only journalists of their generation to disagree with this, by the way. I’ve heard stories from editors of my generation and older of 20-somethings working in national media organisations who are reluctant to report the words of people they deem unacceptable or harmful. 

For them, ‘giving someone a platform’ by putting their words and ideas into the public domain is not a neutral act. If that view comes to predominate in the years ahead – and note how former Student editors often rise to positions of influence – then journalism will change significantly, and not for the better. The window of acceptable opinions and ideas, already too narrow because the status quo is far from perfect, will narrow further. More people will feel shut out of national conversation, with all too predictable results for faith in liberal democracy.

Can reporting facts and opinions do harm? That depends, but if in doubt, go back to JS Mill whose essay On Liberty only becomes more important as time passes: ‘An opinion that corn dealers are starvers of the poor, or that private property is robbery, ought to be unmolested when simply circulated through the press, but may justly incur punishment when delivered orally to an excited mob assembled before the house of a corn dealer.’

Those of us whose views are shaped by Mill – and that is a very large number, far more than those who have read him, or even heard of him – tend to take the virtues of free speech, free inquiry and open debate as axiomatically good. And so we’ve dismissed, too quickly and easily, those who take a differing view.

So this column isn’t a condemnation or even criticism of the young aspiring journalists at Student newspaper, an attack by my generation on theirs. It’s an apology, and an invitation.

I’m sorry that we took our ideas about free speech and journalistic freedom for granted. That we assumed this stuff was so obviously true that we didn’t need to explain or demonstrate why it matters. I’m sorry that we’ve all allowed you to grow up thinking that reading something you disagree with is the same thing as being harmed. 

I’m sorry too that we didn’t make clear that the concept of free speech is more than big enough to accommodate your views: you can be as rude as you like about me, about the media establishment, about JK Rowling and about your parents, but do it civilly and in print. I don’t edit anything anymore, but I know a man who does, and I hope he’ll take up my suggestion to ask Lucy Jackson to write here for The Spectator about why journalists shouldn’t report things they think are harmful.

A free society depends on journalism that puts uncomfortable facts and opinions in the public domain. I find my successors’ reluctance to agree with me uncomfortable, but I can’t preach respect for expression and tolerance for others’ views without seeking to make sure those views are heard and debated.

So, to Lucy Jackson and my successors at Edinburgh’s Student newspaper, young heirs to the Enlightenment with misjudged ideas about journalism, I make this offer: tell me – and Spectator readers –  why I’m wrong.