Kemp Town was the scene of a brutal and largely unprovoked attack this week. The victim of this aggravated assault was none other than The Kemptown Rag. For those who missed it, The Argus of Monday 2nd July carried a story in which it claimed that certain people are offended by the Rag’s content and want the magazine closed down.
Of course, if someone contacts the Argus with their concerns, the paper has every right to report the story. But they also have a responsibility to put both sides, and not to sensationalise.
Despite the fact that a 15-year-old boy had been stabbed to death over the weekend, The Argus somehow managed to find space on the front page for a picture of local resident Barbara Aston tearing up the Kemptown Rag like Geoff Capes with a phone book. This visual teaser led readers to page 9, where the headline branded the Rag as “obscene”, and quotes Barbara as saying “it offends people’s sensibilities and is incredibly seedy”.
Having claimed that the magazine has sparked an “outcry”, the reporter only manages to find two people with a bad word to say about it, and admits that our editor, Sarah Hall, has received no complaints herself.
The article is one thing; however, the editorial on page 8 is quite another. In the ‘Comment’ section opposite, presumably written by Argus editor Michael Beard, he calls for the Kemptown Rag to be ripped up, referring to the magazine as an “odious freesheet” and stating that “the people of Kemp Town should not be subjected to its filth”. His views on the murder of a teenage boy in Lancing are not stated.
Let’s get this into perspective. These complaints (and let’s not forget, our editor has so far received NONE) were sparked by two items in the previous issue: to quote the Argus, “free paper has nudity and sex words”.
First the nudity. This refers to a single photo of the World Naked Bike Ride, a legitimate event which took place with the full blessing of both the council and the police, and as it directly involved Kemp Town, the Rag would have been remiss not to feature it to some extent. In the published photo, the private parts on display barely stretch to two millimetres each. Not to put too finer point on it, the penises aren’t in your face. In fact they can barely be seen without a magnifying glass, and in reality the bodies on display look more like Ken & Barbie dolls.
The individuals who have complained about one photo seem to be ignoring the fact that two hundred naked people cycled past their houses in the flesh! If that is deemed inoffensive and allowable by the authorities, how can a single photo of it be so irredeemably bad?
Now the ‘sex words’. This refers to an article by Letitcia in which a small number (I counted no more than two or three) of sexual swear words are used in a humorous way to make a point about our use of language. As I say, let’s get this into perspective:
There have been twenty-two issues of The Kemptown Rag. This one edition featured in excess of twenty-five articles totalling many thousands of words. A small number of readers have a problem with a small number of words in just one of those articles from one of those issues. And for that the entire magazine is publicly branded as odious, seedy and deserving of immediate closure.
What about the hundreds of articles which have been enjoyed by thousands of people over the past eleven months without attracting a single complaint? Do they count for nothing? Are the large numbers of people who love Letitcia’s articles not also entitled to their view? And what about the dozens of people who work hard to produce the magazine every fortnight. Is it fair to accuse them all of peddling filth?
The Argus editorial states that with the right to free speech comes responsibility. I agree. They have a responsibility to report a story fairly and not abuse their power by launching an entirely inappropriate personal attack on another publication under the guise of legitimate ‘Comment’. Disagree with an editorial decision by all means, but keep your response in proportion to the so-called ‘crime’ committed.
