What to do before, during and after censorship

Detecting subtle signs

Censorship is not a spontaneous process. Before making a move, censors usually make subtle or little actions to make censorship easier or unnoticeable. If you are a student journalist working inside a university, you might want to consider following these measures to prevent censorship:

1. Know your rights. Ignorance is a powerful weapon for censors. Read the constitution of your country and the laws of your state, city, province, etc.  Try to memorize which article grants citizens freedom of press or speech or at least keep a copy in your computer or in the newsroom.
2. Know where the money comes from. All student journalists should know who pays (and how much they pay) for the publication or transmission of their news outlet.
3. Challenge a speech restriction. If your university has a code that prohibits some form of speech that is protected by the constitution or laws of your country, file a complaint to your university. If your university is not obliged to obey free speech laws, you can argue that speech restrictions contradict the basic mission of a university (see Universities as marketplaces of ideas in the Censorship page).
4. Be friendly but not familiar. In a perfect world, university professors and administrators (including the student government) would put the interests of students before their own, but we don’t live in that world. Keep a polite relationship with all of them but don’t go any further, even if they seem to be really trustworthy. With your friends, be sure to keep matters of your news outlet inside the newsroom.
5. Detect friendships and relations. This is a task that any journalist should do. Do a little research on the background and relationships of the people that could have some control of your news outlet, including your adviser. It’s not about becoming paranoid, it’s about understanding politics.
6. Keep open lines of communication with your audience. This includes students, faculty members, administrators, employees, alumni and the local community. Try to receive as much feedback as you can on the content of your news outlet. Make it clear to your audience that they can send any opinion to your news outlet and make any criticism to its content.

Controversial content is not worthy of censorship

Many censorship cases to student press started with a controversial article, editorial, cartoon or photograph. Censors justify their actions by putting one or more of these adjectives to the content: obscene, indecent, discriminatory, racist, sexist, distasteful, inappropriate, inconsiderate and my personal favorite, subversive.

However, no matter how offensive this content could be considered, speech is speech, even if most people don’t agree with it. The solution to cure offenses is not shutting an opinion but to make a counterargument, to engage in discussion. Broad and open discussion is a better and more ad hoc method to prevent violence and promote a healthy and diverse environment on campus.

Some administrators may say restricting content is a measure to maintain the quality of the news outlet. Opinion articles and editorials (including cartoons) must have strong and intelligent arguments, but the editors are the ones with the obligation of maintaining the quality of their news outlets not the student government or the administration.

My outlet was censored, now what?

Your news outlet has gone through one or more of the situations listed on the Censorship page. We recommend you to do the following:

• Before taking any action, talk to the university or government authorities. If possible, ask for an explanation.
• Write down all the details, every date and every word. Report the case as accurately as you would when reporting a story for your news outlet. Organizations and news media will ask you to narrate what happened, you want to be precise when explaining an act of censorship.
• Contact your local student press association:

If you live in the U.S., you must contact the Student Press Law Center or the Associated Collegiate Press

If you live in Canada, contact the Canadian University Press

If you live in the Philippines, contact the College Editors Guild

If there’s not a student press association in your country, contact all the national and international organizations that defend press freedom you can find (starting with ISSJ), such as journalists’ unions, press councils and Human Rights nonprofits. Enter the laws and organizations page for more information.

• Contact your local, national and international news media, if they are not interested in running your story, contact other student news outlets. This page will soon provide a list of student news outlets that are just as indignant about censorship as you.
• University or government authorities may offer your team a solution that sounds reasonable but is not exactly giving you freedom to publish or transmit anything you decide. Before making any decisions, talk about these proposals with lawyers, journalists or teachers you trust as well as with organizations, specially with ISSJ.
• If censors take more strict or drastic measures: imprisonment or death threats, threats to your family, torture, imprisonment of one of your colleagues, or other measures we can’t think about, contact the Journalist Assistance Program of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Sometimes things get back to normal, sometimes they don’t. Whatever the result, make sure you do the following:

• If one door closes, open another one. One of the greatests obstacles of free student journalism is its dependence on university or government funding. Your team must start contemplating the possibilities of becoming an independent news outlet.
• Keep writing to other student news outlets and journalism organizations. Usually, news media and organizations report the act of censorship but they seldom do a follow-up. Make sure all the organizations you contacted when the censorship was happening know what happened next.
• This may sound funny, but try to relax or take a break. Dealing with censorship can be an exhausting and frustrating task. Your mental and physical health is far more important than your journalistic duties, specially when you ‘re just starting your career.

Author’s note: In my country, censorship is a common activity. However in many other countries, the situation is far worse. If you live in one of those countries, you might find these preventive measures futile. Contact us and write about your press freedom situation. We will ask experts for their advice and will could come up with a way for your news outlet to survive and keep the information flowing.