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EDITORIAL
THE CASCADE
FRIDAY, JANUARY 22nd, 20 I0
Lessons from Jan Wong and NASH 72
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SONJA SZLOVICSAK eign correspondent with the CBC, in public about these events. EDITOR-IN-CHIEF was just one of the many speakAfter this article was printed ast week, the Cascade went to the Canadian University Press's (CUP) seventy-second National Conference (NASH). The conference was hosted by one of Canada's largest student newspaper, the University of Alberta's
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Gateway. NASH is a unique opportunity for student newspapers to get together, learn from experts (and each other), and to get new ideas. This was also a perfect opportu• nity for the Cascadeto get feedback about our new look. This year, four Cascadedclega tcs we£1tto NASH: Jed Minor, a mem• ber of the production team and the brains behind our recent redesign; Joel Smart, a staff writer and surprisingly hilarious individual; Brittany Wiesner, the Sports and Health Editor, and the social butterfly of NASH; and yours truly, the Editor-in-Chief. This year, there were some very prestigious journalists speaking and hosting seminars (Adrienne Ar:,enault, an award winning for-
ers). One speaker in particular, Jan Wong (a former writer for the Globeand Mail), left me worrying about the state of democracy in our country. Wong was a fabulous journalist. She wrote many great, and sometimes controversial, pieces for the Globeand Mail. She was one of the journalists that covered the Tiananmen Massacre when she was the Beijing correspondent for the Globeand Mail. Her most famous piece was, by far, the most contro• versial piece she wrote. In in article about the 2006 Dawson College shooting, Wong wrote "To be i:;ure, Mr. Lepine hated womefl, Mr. Fabrikant hated his engineering colleagues and Mr. Gill hated everyone. But all of them had been marginalized, in a society that valued pure laine." These two sentences, referring to the only three school shootings which have taken place in Quebec, led to a series of events that eventually led to Wong being fired from the Globeand Mail. NASH was the first time Wong was able to speak
(called "Get under the desk"), Wo11greceived hate mail and death threats; her father was incorrectly identified as a criminal (he has no crimit1al r«:!cord,but th«:!reis a man with the same name that has a criminal record); and Stephan Harper wrote a letter to the editor criticizing Wong and her article. Parliament passed a motion demanding an apology from Wong and her paper (because, apparently, it was a slow week in Ottawa). Now, I can understand why peo· pie were upset that Wong irn;inuated that racism played a part in these three shootings, but frankly, Wong's criticism was valid. Don't forget, in 1995 when Quebec voted to remain in Canada, the premier blamed the "ethnic vote" for the defeat of separation. But even if Wong's comments had been wrong, what business does Parliament have telling newspapers what they can, and can't, print? Of course, the whole uproar in Parliament was just political posturing, which still goes on today.
Editor-in-Chief cascade.chief@ufv.ca So11j;1Szlov1<,.1k
Canada is a democratic country. A successful democracy requires dialogue and more than one viewpoint. Hurt feelings is not a good enough reason for Parliament to try to force a journalist to apologize for an articl«:!.But it seems that Canada's cunent government isn't interested in open dialogue or multiple views. It's worrying that Canada's politicians are beginning to imitate the grandstanding that American politicians are famous for. If our government focused on governing, rather than playing political games, perhaps Harper wouldn't have felt th!! need to prorogue Parliament three years after he attacked a brilliant woman's career.
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been donat«:!dto Ten«:!nbaum. Tenenbaum admitted on the stand to downloading "more than 800 songs since 1999," the BBC reported. He accepted responsibility for downloading and sharing the songs in questiot,. "l shared music. I was thj? one who wanted a say in court. This law1,u,it waB against me. This ii; m;i, v~qict,". , According to the CBC, Tenenbaum "would not s.-iyif he regretted downloading mui;ic, sayii;ig it was a loaded question. 'I don't regret drinking underage in college, even though I got bu~ted a few times."' The article goes on to state that "Tenenbaum said he was thankful that the case wasn't in the millions and contrasted the significance of his fine with the maximum. "That to me sends a message of, 'We considered your sid«:!with some legiti• rnacy,"' he said, adding that "$4.5 million would have been, 'We
Managing Editor cascade.manager@ufv.ca Lewis V.m l)yk
Production Manager cascade.productlon@ufv.ca R,111do11,1 C0111·,1d
Production Jed Minor
Copy Editor Suz,u111t·K1ttdl
News & Opinion Editor cascade.news@ufv.ca P,1ul llr.1mmrr
Arts & Life E\:lltor cascade.arts@ufv.ca P.1111 Falardt,111
Student Fined $675,000 For Downloading 30 Son_gs lion." The Tenenbaum case is "only NEWS& OPINION EDITOR the second of its kind to go to trial in the US," according to the student from the United States BBC. The first of its kind was the who was fined US$675,000for case of a Minnesota woman who illegally downloading and shar- was fined $1.92million "for sharing 30 songs has filed a motion for ing Z4 /:longs." The ju~y awarded a new trial to reduce the damages US$80,000per song in the Minneor to convene a retrial. sota c11se, . Tenenbaum's lawyer argued if1 Joel Tenenbaum, 25, a Boston University student, was found the opening statement that Tenenbaum "was a kid who did what guilty of illegally downloading and sharing files in July 2009. Te- kids do and loved technology nenbaum was fined US$22,500 for and loved music." 1enenbaum's lawyers also accused record comeach track downloaded. panies of being slow to adapt to The maximum an individual can be charged for illegally down- changes in the market place. Individuals have begun to doloading music is "$30,000 per infringement," according to the BBC. nate money to Tenenbaum in sup• "I=Iowever,the jury can raise the port of his case. Tenenbaum has amount to $150,000 per track if it confirmed that "any money raised finds the infringements were wil- so far would be used to pay ex• ful." CBC reported that "the maxi- penses to his legal team, many of whom worked for free." The BBC mum jurors could have awarded in Tenenbaum's case was $4.5 mil- reports that "around $2000" had
Volume 18 · Issue 2 H.00111< I 027
Sports & Health Editor cascade.sports@ufv.ca
don't buy it at all."'" According to Joel Tenenbaum's website joelfightsback.com, "30,000 people have been accused and almost every single case has settled," and "There are actually 133 people in the same [legal situ• ation." Tenenbaum has confirmed that he ':"'l(lf!le_for1:>a.11kfu.ptcy ~f force<;} to pay the full fine. Scansafe, a company which monitors network tiaffic on the Internet, undertook a study which discovered that "the number of attempts to download illegal mp3s and software has increased by more than half over the last three months," as reported by InfoSecurity.com, after ascertaining a "55 per cent increase in illegal down• load attempts over corporate net· works." The study comei; from 100 countries monitored worldwide.
Brit t,1ny W,esntr
Staff Writers Justin
Orltw1u
Jod Sm,m Jord,111 Pttdwr 1'rc:vp1I:l,k
Contributors Samuel Gl.1si-:ow Kt·nd1,1 M, Pim· D.C,. Moi:11 M,1ri11.1P,1r.1pi11i L1rry Portt'lanu• Kyle( Sw,1dd1 n
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