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Salient: An Organ of Student Opinion At Victoria University College, Wellington, N. Z. Vol. 24, No. 4. 1961

Criticism

Criticism

Usually a newspaper enlivens interest for general affairs with biting criticism, by urging discussion, etc. It could be said that the student newspapers should employ similar means to increase student activity. It can be assumed that this would cause relations between editor and publisher to be much more strained than is generally the case today. I have been informed that the editors of Swedish student newspapers are free to express, 011 student politics, an opinion which is not the publisher's, but would not print it in an editorial. As far as I know, there are no such examples to be found in the Finnish student press.

The "Nyytiset case" of last fall is interesting in this light. Before the student elections at the Helsinki Institute of Technology, a well-prepared opposition party, to which the editors of "Nyytiset" belonged, came out in the open. As is generally known, the opposition gained a clear victory; how much credit "Nyytiset" deserves for this and whether it even worked for the opposition intentionally, i is indeed difficult to say. But I don't mean to say that they should not have been allowed to I do so. Indeed, the editor must A think of the well-being of the publisher but his own opinion of it may be different. And he can air his opinion while risking his dismissal, just as the student representative body runs a risk at a higher level when it appoints the editors. To be sure, one can place an editing board over the head of the editor, which can be very useful, if its members are capable of giving good advice; but if its rights include preliminary control, the appointment of such a board means in practice the dismissal of the editor. In the Nyytiset case there was no dismissal, and I don't think the thought even occurred to anyone. Therefore, if someone says that Nyytiset supported the opposition, that is merely the verification of an occurrence which took place within a perfectly legitimate frame, and not criticism. That a newspaper supports an opposition group, is very typical among the regional group newspapers at the University of Helsinki, for example. However, an opposition party is seldom so well organised as the one last fall at the Institute of Technology. In my opinion, the differences of opinion stem very often from the fact that editors are often chosen whose interests diverge essentially from these of the students, who are active elsewhere in the student body; this also explains why the "style of the cultural paper" is so popular in various newspapers.