For several years, UTS students have been publishing a daily newspaper during the Sydney Writers’ Festival. As Crikey’s Margaret Simons reported last week, the Festival impounded the first edition of the 2008 newspaper.
There was never any secret about this as the media reported it at the time. Two main issues upset the Festival management. One was a report that the then Minister for the Arts Frank Sartor was met with “grudging applause” at the Festival awards night. The reporting was said to be potentially offensive to the NSW government, a major sponsor of the Festival. Festival Director Dr Wendy Were also disliked the slightly humorous back page comments about queues, lack of an ATM and other tidbits about daily life at the Festival, which she regarded as “trashy”.
As the head of Journalism at UTS, I had two conversations with Were on this first day. My approach was to try to persuade her that the continued impounding of Festival News would backfire on the Writers’ Festival, which most people would not expect to be in favour of censorship. Later in the day, she reluctantly agreed to release the paper.
As Simons has also reported on her Content Makers blog, Festival News journalists have related in letters to the UTS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Dean, Professor Theo Van Leeuwen and the SWF how harassment of student distributors continued during the week. Finally on the Saturday, I spent several hours distributing the paper myself because there had been further interference with distribution and we were not allowed to deposit them anywhere at Festival venues.
On the previous evening, ABC’s Lateline had reported on the attempts at censorship earlier in the week. So lots of festivalgoers were aware of these events and I observed that many of them were approving of the admittedly more lively 2008 Festival News and said they were opposed to the attempted censorship.
Nothing more was heard of these matters until February 17 this year when, following a tipoff, journalism staff visited the SWF page to see an apology including the words:
Professor Theo van Leeuwen, Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, UTS, has acknowledged that, contrary to claims made by the publication at the time, Sydney Writers’ Festival had not sought to censor Festival News in 2008, or to control the editorial content of this publication in any other way.
This was the first we had heard of this apology. Not only were staff shocked but also students, who had worked on the publication. The words in the apology corresponded neither to the available documentary evidence or their own direct experience. This ran counter to everything they are taught about journalism.
There is a convention in journalism that journalists are consulted before apologies are published. During the 14 years I have been at UTS, the university has never asked us not to publish anything or had to apologise for anything UTS journalism has published. It is this approach which has allowed independent journalism to flourish at UTS.
On February 26, Wendy Were told journalists who were trying to organize a 2009 Sydney Writers’ Festival panel on the theme of dissent, that unless they removed my name from their list of proposed speakers, the panel could not go on. Instead of accepting this condition, the journalists withdrew the offer of the panel.
This is not the first time in my life that attempts have been made to ban me from speaking, but this latest instance came from an unexpected quarter. Over recent years, I have often participated in the Festival, usually on topics about injustice or dissent.
From my point of view, these events raise questions not only about freedom of expression and the role of journalism in a university but also about the Festival itself. How much influence do the Festival sponsors exert over its flavour and program? Are there any other examples of writers or critics who have been excluded because they fell out of favour? Has the SWF become the creature of publishers and sponsors to detriment of serious engagement and open discussion?
The success of the apology strategy relied upon students meekly accepting that their direct experience could be denied, the understanding that their job was to report what occurred at the Festival was wrong and their irreverent tone inappropriate. It is heartening, but not surprising to me, that their compliance could not be relied upon.
Postscript: As I finished this piece, I visited the SWF site to check the apology. It’s gone. Instead there appears:
The University of Technology, Sydney has for many years produced Festival News as part of a long standing arrangement with Sydney Writers’ Festival. The production and distribution of the paper was by contract “a promotional and marketing activity in support of the Sydney Writers’ Festival” for which the Festival regularly provided much in-kind support: including free distribution, tickets to events, interviews and unprecedented access to internationally renowned guest writers.
We regret that we have been unable to find a mutually satisfactory way forward in 2009 and therefore Festival News will not be appearing this year.
I’ve never seen or heard of this alleged contract. It’s odd that if it exists, no one from the Festival or UTS Faculty management ever once, during these events, mentioned its existence to myself, the students, journalism staff, let alone 2008 Festival News editor Jenna Price, who was tasked to produce an independent publication. And why, if such a contract existed, did Festival News carry the disclaimer that it did not represent the views of the Festival? Why did UTS pay for the publication and why did UTS journalism students, not the Festival, distribute it? In any case, this new assertion further confirms that the issue was always censorship and the right to control the editorial content, contrary to the disappeared apology.
If the Festival organisers aren’t prepared to have a public discussion about the role of dissent in literature, perhaps the SWF leadership should have a private session where they discuss what they understand by censorship, truth, professional and creative integrity and freedom of expression and when they’ve come up with a form of words, they can run them past the sponsors to get their approval?
Wendy Bacon is the Professor of Journalism at the University of Technology, Sydney
Wendy, I just shake my head. I don’t know how you manage to still fight the same battles you were fighting 40 years ago. Perhaps you could modify old nun’s habits into artists smocks? On the other hand, in this day and age the internet means that we all have access to the “presses” and that distribution is much wider than in the “Thorunka” days.
Festival News was a facilitated coproduction between Sydney Writers’ Festival and UTS, produced with the Festival logo and branding as its masthead. It is not an independent newspaper. The production and distribution of the paper is clearly defined in the UTS-produced sponsorship agreement as “a promotional and marketing activity in support of the Sydney Writers’ Festival.”
In 2008, a late change in editorial management at UTS appears to have resulted in a change in direction for Festival News, without regard to the sponsorship agreement.
At one stage in 2008, Festival News was temporarily withdrawn for a matter of hours, while the Festival discussed the publication with UTS in response to complaints received by the Festival. Distribution was later reinstated.
The Festival met with UTS in June 2008 to discuss the events. Based on ensuing discussions, the Festival received letters of apology from senior faculty, including a public statement provided for use in any manner the Festival chose.
Any discussion about how this apology was managed within UTS are matters for UTS to address. With the apology we received from UTS last year we feel that the issues surrounding the 2008 Festival have been fully addressed.
With regards to decisions about the 2009 program, Sydney Writers’ Festival is a curated annual event featuring local, interstate and international writers. Over the course of each year, and particularly in the months before festival launch, we are inundated with interesting proposals. The Artistic Director makes many difficult decisions in selecting events for the week-long program, in order to ensure that each year the Festival presents a diverse series of high quality discussions and inspiring speakers.
Wendy Bacon has participated in past festivals and there is scope for further involvement in the future. In the meantime, we are pleased to be working with UTS on a number events in our 2009 Festival.
What a beat up this has been by Wendy Bacon. An ageing rebel in search of a lost cause. I feel sorry for the Sydney Writers Festival having to deal with such puerile distractions when they have an international program to produce. This has all been about one person’s massive ego. Crikey!
Tom, Ah yes, the brave disclaimer… So there’s another work opportunity for all the newly unemployed journalists; publishing their own newspaper branded the “Sydney Morning Herald”, but with a disclaimer that it contains their own version of the news. I think that people perusing the Writers Festival News are hoping to gain information, rather than scandals. You mention journalists having to be independent. Rather it is the organ the journalist works for that demonstrates the level of independence involved. I love reading about Murdock’s business problems in his newpapers… but for some reason, this does not appear. That’s not because his journalists are not independent – many of them know this information but cannot publish it in their own newspapers. There is apparently some confusion over who “owns” the Festival News – whether it is the journalism students who write for it, or the Festival organisation that commissioned it. If those students think that they will have independence to publish their own views in their future careers, then it would be best to disabuse them now. In a perfect world, it would be nice if journalists had perfect independence – I for one would look forward to the Woolworths shopping catalogue if it contained the latest gossip about the local branch, but sadly the only clue I get is from the number of asprin advertisements in it…
Just because you’re ‘paranoid’ Wendy doesn’t mean ‘They’ aren’t out to get ya. Or to put it another way, welcome to the State of Fear, otherwise known fondly as New South Wales.
Similar experience of psychological pressure at my own local community sector Addison Rd Centre. In all the confused power mongering, kaleidascope (spelling?) of observations of various actors, and limited snapshots I gradually concluded the problem and the solution was transparency.
With openness comes antiseptic sunlight. It prevents growth of moulds. It stops embarrassing dysfunctions from even establishing roots. It self regulates. In other words it’s a beautiful thing very much like democracy itself.
In short Wendy, best of British and long may UTS be an instrument of transparency.
By the by this kind of unfettered access to ‘public’ space to say distribute handbills or whatever, is exactly the issue of state interference in human right of free communication that was at issue with Sydney University attempts to take over Callan Park. Because USYD – another favoured haunt of political favourites (of both stripes) – has actively censored those beyond a self referential pale. They do this by the device of arbitrary removal of the general license to attend “enclosed lands”.
That’s the likely scenario down at the Rocks, Sydney Theatre(s)/Dance etc precinct in future which hosted the Writers Festival last year.
Very lastly a bit of free legals on contracts: It can be an implied agreement by course of conduct. We do this in exchange for you do that, non verbal nods each way. But there has to be real value in each direction. On the other hand what did UTS Journalism get from SWF in exchange? Free access to events or what? Sounds like all you got was an almighty pain in arts!
The thing is SWF is all massively taxpayer subsidised???? Do you think? They don’t have a moral or political leg to stand on is my guess. A financial statement would be good – see what I mean about transparency