On the Record (newspaper)

The Ryersonian is a weekly campus newspaper produced by students at the Ryerson School of Journalism[1]. It competes with The Eyeopener to provide the most complete coverage of events at Ryerson University in Toronto. As well as appearing in print, The Ryersonian can be read online as part of RyersOnline [2], a news portal for the School of Journalism, featuring material from students in the broadcast, newspaper, magazine and online streams.

Students in their fourth year of the school's print stream are required to report, edit, photograph and produce the issue, and work on the masthead for 6 week blocks.

Controversies

Several editions in the 2006-07 year addressed issues of on-campus racial tension. In November 2006 it was reported that a group called "I'm a White Minority @ Ryerson" was formed on Facebook, the popular online networking site[3]. The controversy snowballed as known white supremacist, and leader of the Nationalist Party of Canada Don Andrews, a Ryerson alum, was profiled on the front page of the March 21 edition[4]. He defended the Facebook group's rights to form a white culture student group.

Some criticized the paper for the story's poor timing, as March 21 is also the International Day for the Elimination of Racism. In particular, the Ryersonian was accused of generating the news through its coverage of the facebook group, which was considered by some to be a joke and not news-worthy. The Ryersonian's coverage attracted the attention of racists on the Internet, who posted on forums, and were then reported on again by the Ryersonian, attracting more Internet attention, which was further reported on. When Don Andrews commented on the story on his website, the Ryersonian sought out his comment, not only on the facebook group, but on his world-view in general. The Eyeopener, Ryerson's other student newspaper and competitor to the Ryersonian, ran an editorial [[5]] critical of the Ryersonian's coverage and ran a spoof issue lampooning the coverage of racists by the Ryersonian.

In response, students and members of the RSU protested by gathering up editions of the paper and dumping them in front of the Ryersonian's office. A blog known as Ryersonian Watch [6] has also been setup this week by an anonymous student using the domain ryersonian.ca

Links

• The Ryersonian [7]
• RyersOnline [8]
• Ryersonian Watch [9]
• The Eyeopener [[10]]
• Ryerson's site [11]
• The Eyeopener editorial [[12]]