Don’t Let The Sun Go Down

In case you haven’t heard, the Union is debating banning the sale of The Sun newspaper, in addition to joining several other universities in banning Robin Thicke’s ‘Blurred Lines’ on campus. While I appreciate the fact that some of the headlines could be seen as offensive, censoring any publication is not the answer.

No-one is forced to read The Sun, or any other paper. It is a personal choice and by banning its sale on campus this is taking away the public’s right to choose. Whether you or I or the Union approve of the content of the paper is irrelevant- everyone has the freedom to choose what they want to read. In addition, surely the vast majority of people on campus are over 18 and therefore, one would assume, capable of making up their own minds and picking a newspaper to view, and their thoughts on the content anyway?

While it is reassuring to see that the Union is taking its responsibilities towards students seriously, as adults in a media-orientated environment where we are constantly bombarded with different points of view, what good would it do to stop The Sun being sold on campus anyway? Those who would normally have been influenced by the headlines will most likely be exposed to the stories in another medium.

Just as harmful?

Why single out The Sun in particular? It is certainly not the only paper to publish ‘offensive’ stories or brash headlines. If we are controlling the sales of one ‘offensive’ paper then should all tabloids be banned in that case? Who decides what constitutes ‘offensive’ material? We come to the issue of Freedom of Expression, and the line between ‘protecting’ the ‘public’; in this case students and academics. The problem with banning any publication in this way is that even if there was an argument for the original censorship, the line between acceptable and unacceptable material is going to be impossible to draw, and it will be a subjective test, an opinion of the person in power at the time who makes the ruling.

In any case, the Student Union has no right to dictate what should or should not be available to students, who are all adults with the capability and right to make their own choices. If they wanted to gain real legitimacy with this move, or in fact any other particularly controversial issue then one option would be a referendum, as has been mentioned in comments on the news article- https://thetab.com/uk/norwich/2013/10/20/the-sun-to-set-on-uea/. Nevertheless, even if a popular vote was made supporting the ban, more problems would arise concerning the content of other tabloids, newspapers, perhaps even Waterstone’s book selection.

The consequences of the ban could be increasingly restrictive and cause serious problems for everyone concerned, all in aid of nannying students who are at university to grow up and learn how to be independent, competent humans. The Union should let students make up their own minds on how they feel about The Sun, giving them the opportunity to embrace or reject the material as they have a right to do; material which has a right to be put into the public sphere under the European Convention on Human Rights Article 10.