Ethos censors Felix
Freedom of the press organisation condemns College
Two weeks ago Felix ran a front page story (right) on the repeated evacuations of the Ethos sports centre in the first week of opening, despite the story being fully accurate, Neil Mosley, Head of Sport Imperial, prevented distribution of the newspaper.
Felix had permission from Mosley and Jo Evans, Ethos manager, to place a distribution bin in the new sports centre. But, Mosley, decided that the story was bad publicity and locked the bin away, along with 300 copies. Mr. Mosley did not contact the editor to take issue with any of the details in the story. In fact, he said, "There were no factual inaccuracies... I just did not want it in my sports centre." The editor was not informed of Mosley's actions and it was not until the distribution team went to replenish the bin with last week's issue that the transgression came to light.
Felix Editor, Rupert Neate, sought the advice of professional journalism organisations, who were astounded that a well respected institution such as Imperial was behaving in such a "childish manner".
Barry White, National Organiser of the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, described Mosley's actions as "quite appalling, withholding copies is censorship, that is totally unacceptable... Felix offers the right of reply, if they had issue with the content they should have used the correct channels of communication." He continued, "it's a very well written piece, given what you could have said under the circumstances - very measured."
Mosley attempted to defend his actions, "There were a range of clients, potential patrons, contractors, students, VIPs... I felt that last week's `Cold Reception' headline and photo were particularly sensationalist. It is true that we did have two fire evacuations in the first week". Felix can reveal that there have now been a total of four evacuations of the new sports centre, the most recent being last Thursday.
Mr. Mosley did not explain why he failed to contact Felix to inform us of his decision to remove copies. Paddy Jacman, Head of Commercial Services, said, "I think he probably had to make the decision in a very short period of time, after reading the article". Could he not have informed the editor after he made the decision? "He could have done".
We have been informed that the College Estates department have "no problem with having the bin back in Ethos" but when asked for reassurance against further censorship, we were told, "installation will be subject to the local managers approval based on the content of the article".
Meanwhile, the five-month late sports centre is still suffering from delays. The squash courts should be available from the start of next week. But, there are "still issues with the climbing wall," which they are "trying to get done as quickly as possible".
