Student editors accused of playing administration’s mouthpiece

 BEIRUT - Samer Mazloum

Youth publications in the Arab world – both online and in print – are rare, mostly influenced by their sponsors and censored by their university’s administration.

A few attempts at establishing free youth publications such as Campus were thwarted by financial hardships. When sponsors took over Campus, they transformed it into a cheesecake magazine.

Fascinated by its financial profits, other publications walked in the footsteps of Campus. These included Echo and other monthly magazines.

Political parties also gave their publicity media a shot. Former Beirut MP Najah Wakim’s the People Movement started an English-speaking newspaper, The Commoners, at the American University of Beirut (AUB). Yet the project stopped a while later in light of the high turn over in the group’s membership which included active members who were behind The Commoners’ appearance.

Official publications sponsored by university funding faced a different fate, however, as was the case with the Lebanese American University’s (LAU) The Tribune and AUB’s Outlook. While The Tribune was aimed to teach journalism students in LAU some fieldwork, Outlook took a more student nature and received funds from AUB’s student representative University Student Faculty Committee.

AUB students started Outlook in 1949 and gave it its name – on interim basis – until a student came with a better name. But no student had better suggestions and the name remained as it first appeared.

During the heyday of the student movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Outlook reached its zenith and became the mouthpiece of a powerful left wing student movement. Its importance was curtailed, however, with the start of the Lebanese civil war in 1975 when the weekly newspaper was shut down.

In 1996, the USFC elected the first Outlook editorial board after a couple of years of preparations to restore the student weekly. Outlook was restored into first a monthly publication, then became bimonthly before it finally became weekly.

In the late 1990s, Outlook restored a great deal of its fame as it hit hard the administration for favoritism in faculty promotion and other pressing student issues. It also criticized a most-of-the-time lazy USFC. Some years later, Outlook’s might faded as its role fluctuated between being the mouthpiece of some administration offices such as the Student Affairs Office, the Visitors Bureau or other offices.

“Outlook’s editors forgot what was their newspaper’s main role,” said one of the former editorial team members who insisted to remain anonymous. “Just look at its latest editorial policy,” the member added.

“What do they mean that students were not allowed to criticize each other in Outlook? Is this freedom of expression? Students should learn democracy in AUB by debating and criticizing each others’ perspectives,” she argued.

The member also said that the administration had a heavy influence inside Outlook. “A faculty member reads the blueprint before it goes to the printer, but they refuse to call it censorship and insist to call it a publication promoting student freedom of expression.”

The veteran former member also criticized Outlook’s insistence to promote itself as “the only student newspaper the same way dictatorships in the region promote their regimes.” She maintained that Outlook could not entertain the idea of competition among youth publications. “Please note that Outlook’s budget was equivalant to 25 times as much as Alternative’s budget.

“Was it because the mentioned newspaper appeared on regular basis in good layout and established circulation spots in Beirut while Outlook appears whenever it pleases in a lousy and always-changing layout, skips summer vacations and student exam periods?” according to the former Outlook member.

“Before they compete with other publications, let them solve their own problems, come up with a decent newspaper with headlines and captions and act independently of advisors and big brothers and sisters.”